ABORTION: ROE V. WADE

Meet Jane Roe

In late 1969 Norma McCorvey, twenty-one and single, found herself with an unwanted pregnancy. She worked as a waitress in a bar; previously she had worked with a traveling circus selling tickets. She already had a five-year-old daughter for whom she could not afford to care. McCorvey's mother had taken custody of her daughter. She had little money and nowhere to go. McCorvey's father was unable to provide for both Norma and her future child. She did not think she was in any condition to care for another child. She wanted an abortion. In Texas she could have one only if her life was endangered by a pregnancy, which it was not.

Coffee and Weddington

McCorvey met Linda Coffee, a young attorney concerned about feminist issues. Coffee spoke on women's rights around Dallas, where she lived. She was active in the Women's Equity Action League, an organization that worked for equal employment opportunity for women. One of five women in the 1965 first-year law-school class at the University of Texas, Coffee had found it difficult to find a job despite her stellar law-school record. She believed that equality was not possible for women until they had control over their fertility. She joined up with Sarah Weddington, a law-school classmate. They wanted to challenge Texas's abortion statutes in court as unconstitutional, Once they met McCorvey, they knew they had found a case. McCorvey agreed to be a plaintiff. Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee warned her that the decision would not come fast enough to allow her actually to have an abortion; she would almost certainly have to agree to give birth. She did. In addition, McCorvey was concerned about publicity. She agreed to be a plaintiff only if the lawsuit did not use her name. Norma McCorvey became Jane Roe, and her lawsuit became Roe v. Wade. Henry Wade was the Texas district attorney arguing in favor of abortion laws.

Precedents

The Supreme Court had decided cases that provided some reason to think that it might be willing to rule against antiabortion statutes such as that found in Texas. In 1968 the Court held in Griswold v. Connecticut that a state could not prohibit the sale of contraceptives to married people. This decision held that the Constitution recognized a right to privacy. In 1971 in Eisenstadt v. Baird the Supreme Court extended that right to unmarried people. Those cases had not been exceptionally controversial among the broad public, and the stage was set for a more sweeping ruling regarding reproduction and the right to privacy.

The Decision

When the Supreme Court agreed to hear Roe v. Wade many organizations wrote papers for the Court, called amicus curiae or friend-of-the-court briefs, arguing for a decision on one side or the other. Such briefs are routinely submitted for important Supreme Court cases. Most organizations writing to the Court supported holding antiabortion statutes unconstitutional. On 21 January 1973 the Supreme Court handed down decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton, a challenge to a slightly different antiabortion law in Georgia. The Court held that in the first trimester of pregnancy the state cannot prohibit a woman in consultation with her doctor from getting an abortion. It allowed greater regulation of abortion in the second trimester and strong regulations in the final trimester.

The Prolife Movement Emerges

The campaign to challenge the laws prohibiting abortion did not receive much media attention before Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. Many supporters of abortion restrictions were shocked by the decisions establishing a right to abortion. Many grassroots antiabortion, or prolife, groups organized in response to the decisions. The prolife movement obtained new restrictions on abortion in state legislatures. Several states enacted laws requiring consent from the parents of minors, the spouse, or the prospective father before an abortion could be performed. In Planned Parenthood v. Danforth (1976) the Supreme Court struck down these consent provisions as too restrictive of a woman's right to an abortion. Several states also imposed restrictions on public funding for abortions. Pennsylvania and Connecticut strongly limited Medicaid funding for abortions. Saint Louis barred city-owned hospitals, where most poor residents received their medical care, from performing abortions. Financial restrictions were upheld by the Supreme Court in Beal v. Doe (1977), Maher v. Roe (1977), and Poelker v. Doe(1977). The Supreme Court said that the Roe v. Wade decision prevented states from restricting abortions, but that it did not require that states pay for them.

Continued Controversy

The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision guaranteed a woman's right to an abortion. It also set off a series of legislative and legal contests about the exact terms of that right. Prolife advocates won many legislative and some legal battles over the regulation of abortion during the 1970s. These political and legal struggles continued to be a defining element of the politics of the 1980s and 1990s.