Title: Abortion.  | U.S. Constitution Annotated | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Headings: Abortion.
Abortion.
Footnotes

Content: Abortion. | U.S. Constitution Annotated | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute
Abortion. In Roe v. Wade, 570 the Court established a right of personal privacy protected by the Due Process Clause that includes the right of a woman to determine whether or not to bear a child. In doing so, the Court dramatically increased judicial oversight of legislation under the privacy line of cases, striking down aspects of abortion-related laws in practically all the states, the District of Columbia, and the territories. To reach this result, the Court first undertook a lengthy historical review of medical and legal views regarding abortion, finding that modern prohibitions on abortion were of relatively recent vintage and thus lacked the historical foundation which might have preserved them from constitutional review. 571 Then, the Court established that the word “person” as used in the Due Process Clause and in other provisions of the Constitution did not include the unborn, and therefore the unborn lacked federal constitutional protection. 572 Finally, the Court summarily announced that the “ Fourteenth Amendment ’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action” includes “a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas or zones of privacy” 573 and that “ [t]his right of privacy . . . is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” 574
It was also significant that the Court held this right of privacy to be “fundamental” and, drawing upon the strict standard of review found in equal protection litigation, held that the Due Process Clause required that any limits on this right be justified only by a “compelling state interest” and be narrowly drawn to express only the legitimate state interests at stake. 575 Assessing the possible interests of the states, the Court rejected justifications relating to the promotion of morality and the protection of women from the medical hazards of abortions as unsupported in the record and ill-served by the laws in question.