ROE v WADE

G.R. No. 159373 22 January 1973 Blackmun, J.

Natural Persons - NCC 40-41, CONSTI Art.
2 Sec. 12
APPELLANT APPELLE
Norma McCorvey (Jane Roe) Henry Wade, District Attorney of Dallas
County
Recit Ready
Jane Roe (not her real name) was an unmarried and pregnant Texas resident in 1970. She
wanted to have an abortion, but Texas abortion law made it a felony to abort a fetus unless “on
medical advice for the purpose of saving the life of the mother.” Roe filed suit against Wade,
the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas to challenge the law outlawing abortion. A licensed
physician (Hallford), who had two state abortion prosecutions pending against him, was
permitted to intervene. A childless married couple (the Does), the wife not being pregnant,
separately attacked the laws, basing alleged injury on the future possibilities of contraceptive
failure, pregnancy, unpreparedness for parenthood, and impairment of the wife's health.
Roe said that the law violated the 14th Amendment, which provides equal protection of the laws
and a guarantee of personal liberty, and a woman’s right to privacy implicitly guaranteed in the
First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and 14th Amendments. The state argued that “the right to life of the
unborn child is superior to the right to privacy of the mother.” The state also argued that in
previous decisions where the Court protected individual or marital privacy, that right was not
absolute. The state argued that this is a policy matter best left to the legislature to decide. A
three-judge federal district court ruled the Texas abortion law unconstitutional, and the case
was then appealed directly to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Court’s ruling declaratory, though not injunctive, relief was warranted, declared the abortion
statutes void as vague and overbroadly infringing those plaintiffs' Ninth and Fourteenth
Amendment rights. The court ruled the Does' complaint not justiciable. Appellants directly
appealed to this Court on the injunctive rulings, and appellee cross-appealed from the District
Court's grant of declaratory relief to Roe and Hallford.

FACTS:
1) Texas statutes made it a crime to procure or attempt an abortion except when medically
advised for the purpose of saving the life of the mother. Appellant Jane Roe sought a
declaratory judgment that the statutes were unconstitutional on their face and an
injunction to prevent defendant Dallas County District Attorney from enforcing the
statutes.
2) Appellant alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant, and that she was unable to
receive a legal abortion by a licensed physician because her life was not threatened by
the continuation of her pregnancy and that she was unable to afford to travel to another
jurisdiction to obtain a legal abortion. Appellant sued on behalf of herself and all other
women similarly situated, claiming that the statutes were unconstitutionally vague and
abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and
Fourteenth Amendments.
3) The court held that declaratory, though not injunctive, relief was warranted, the court
declared the abortion statutes void as vague and overbroadly infringing those plaintiffs'
Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights.
4) The court further held that the District Court erred in granting declaratory relief to
Hallford, who alleged no federally protected right not assertable as a defense against
the good-faith state prosecutions pending against him.
ISSUES RULING
1. WON Texas statutes improperly YES
invade a right possessed by the
appellant to terminate her pregnancy
embodied in the concept of personal
liberty contained in the Fourteenth
Amendment’s Due Process Clause?
RATIONALE
1. The Supreme Court decided in favor of Roe in a 7-2 decision. Justice Blackmun wrote
the opinion for the majority, which recognized that a woman’s choice whether to have
an abortion is protected by her right to privacy. Justices Stewart, Burger and Douglas
wrote concurring opinions. Justices White and Rehnquist dissented.

2. The majority determined that a woman’s right to decide whether to have an abortion
involved the question of whether the Constitution protected a right to privacy. The
justices answered this question by asserting that the 14th Amendment, which prohibits
states from “depriving any person of … liberty … without due process of law,” protected
a fundamental right to privacy. Further, after considerable discussion of the law’s
historical lack of recognition of rights of a fetus, the justices concluded “the word
‘person,’ as used in the 14th Amendment, does not include the unborn.” The right of a
woman to choose to have an abortion fell within this fundamental right to privacy, and
was protected by the Constitution.

3. A woman’s right to choose to have an abortion was not considered an absolute right.
The Court stated that government restrictions on a woman’s right to choose were
subject to the highest standard of review, that of strict scrutiny. This level of review
requires that in order to be enforceable, a government regulation of this right must be
shown to be narrowly tailored to a meet a compelling state interest. The justices noted
that states did have some legitimate interests in regulating or prohibiting abortions. The
first interest was the protection of the health of the mother from the dangers of abortion
procedures; the second was the protection of the life of the fetus. While these interests
were not very strong in the early stages of pregnancy, they became stronger (more
compelling) in the later stages of the pregnancy. Striking a balance between a woman’s
right to privacy and a state’s interests, the Court set up a framework laying out when
states could regulate and even prohibit abortions.

4. According to the framework, in the first trimester (the first three months of the
pregnancy), a woman’s right to privacy surrounding the choice to have an abortion
outweighed a state’s interests in regulating this decision. In the first trimester, having an
abortion does not pose a grave danger to the life and health of the mother, and the fetus
is still undeveloped. The state’s interests are not yet compelling, so it cannot interfere
with a woman’s right to privacy by regulating or prohibiting her from having an abortion
during the first trimester. During the second trimester, the state’s interests become more
compelling as the danger of complications increases and the fetus becomes more
developed. During this stage, it may regulate, but not prohibit abortions, as long as the
regulations are aimed at protecting the health of the mother. During the third trimester,
the danger to the woman’s health becomes the greatest and fetal development nears
completion. In the final trimester the state’s interests in protecting the health of the
mother and in protecting the life of the fetus become their most compelling. The state
 may regulate or even prohibit abortions during this stage, as long as there is an
exception for abortions necessary to preserve the life and health of the mother.

5. In his dissenting opinion, Justice Rehnquist argued that the framers of the 14th
Amendment did not intend for it to protect a right of privacy, a right which they did not
recognize, and that they definitely did not intend for it to protect a woman’s decision to
have an abortion. Justice Rehnquist further argued that the only right to privacy is that
which is protected by the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches
and seizures. Finally, he concluded that because this issue required a careful balance
of the interests of the woman against the interests of the state, it was not an appropriate
decision for the Court to make, but instead was a question that should have been left
up to state legislatures to resolve.
Disposition
Although the District Court granted appellant Roe declaratory relief, it stopped short of issuing
an injunction against enforcement of the Texas statutes. The Court has recognized that different
considerations enter into a federal court's decision as to declaratory relief, on the one hand,
and injunctive relief, on the other.
The Court finds it unnecessary to decide whether the District Court erred in withholding
injunctive relief, for we assume the Texas prosecutorial authorities will give full credence to this
decision that the present criminal abortion statutes of that State are unconstitutional.
The judgment of the District Court as to intervenor Hallford is reversed, and Dr. Hallford's
complaint in intervention is dismissed. In all other respects, the judgment of the District Court
is affirmed. Costs are allowed to the appellee.

Dissent
Justice Rehnquist. The right to an abortion is not universally accepted, and the right to privacy
is thus not inherently involved in this case.