Title: Roe v. Wade is decided - HISTORY
Headings: Roe v. Wade is decided
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Roe v. Wade is decided
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Content: Roe v. Wade is decided - HISTORY
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1973
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January 22
Roe v. Wade is decided
Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion, is decided on January 22, 1973. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures. Despite opponents’ characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. For most of the country’s first 100 years, abortion as we know it today was not a criminal offense. READ MORE: The Criminalization of Abortion Began as a Business Tactic
In the 1700s and early 1800s, the word “abortion” referred only to the termination of a pregnancy after “quickening,” the time when the fetus first began to make noticeable movements. The induced ending of a pregnancy before this point did not even have a name–but not because it was uncommon. Women in the 1700s often took drugs to end their unwanted pregnancies. In 1827, though, Illinois passed a law that made the use of abortion drugs punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment.