Title: Roe v. Wade - Wikipedia
Headings: Roe v. Wade
Roe v. Wade
Contents
Background
History of abortion laws in the United States
History of the case
Issues before the Supreme Court
Oral arguments and initial discussions
Drafting the opinion
Supreme Court decision
Opinion of the Court
Standing
Abortion and right to privacy
Concurrences
Dissents
Reception
Political
Support
Opposition
Legal
Public opinion
Role in subsequent decisions and politics
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services
Planned Parenthood v. Casey
Stenberg v. Carhart
Gonzales v. Carhart
Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt
Activities of Norma McCorvey
Activities of Sarah Weddington
Presidential positions
State laws regarding Roe
See also
Footnotes
References
Further reading
External links

Content: She was referred to lawyers Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, who filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A three-judge panel of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. Texas then appealed this ruling directly to the U.S. Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case. In January 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision ruling that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution provides a "right to privacy" that protects a pregnant woman's right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. But it also ruled that this right is not absolute, and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and protecting prenatal life. The Court resolved this balancing test by tying state regulation of abortion to the three trimesters of pregnancy: during the first trimester, governments could not prohibit abortions at all; during the second trimester, governments could require reasonable health regulations; during the third trimester, abortions could be prohibited entirely so long as the laws contained exceptions for cases when they were necessary to save the life or health of the mother. The Court classified the right to choose to have an abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the " strict scrutiny " standard, the highest level of judicial review in the United States.