Title: Roe v. Wade and the Right to Abortion | NWLC
Headings: Resource
Resource
The Constitutional Right to Privacy Predates Roe v. Wade
The Decision to Have an Abortion is Protected under the Constitutional Right to Privacy
The Evolution of the Constitutional Right to Abortion, Post-Roe v. Wade
The Current Landscape – Roe and the Right to Abortion is Under Constant Attack

Content: Building upon prior precedents including the right to educate one’s children as one chooses, the Court identified a “zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.” Recognizing the importance of privacy to marriage, the Court in Griswold invalidated a state’s attempt to prohibit married couples from using contraceptives. This right to contraception was soon extended to unmarried individuals in Eistenstadt v. Baird in 1972. As the Supreme Court said, “If the right to privacy means anything, it is the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.” The Decision to Have an Abortion is Protected under the Constitutional Right to Privacy
In the 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court applied this core constitutional principle of privacy and liberty to a woman’s ability to terminate a pregnancy. In Roe, the Court held that the constitutional right to privacy includes a woman’s right to decide whether to have an abortion. The Court made clear that as a basic right to privacy protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the woman’s right is “fundamental,” meaning that governmental attempts to interfere with the right are subject to “strict scrutiny.” To withstand strict scrutiny, the government must show that its law or policy is necessary to achieve a compelling interest. The law or policy must also be narrowly tailored to achieve the interest and must be the least restrictive means for doing so. Yet, the Court also concluded that the “right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.”