was endangered. By 1950, when abortion was a safer procedure, physicians, non-Catholic physicians in particular, began to liberalize their views. Ironically, by this time the authority over the issue began to shift from the medical profession to the legal profession.
In 1966, California pressed charges against 21 doctors for performing illegal abortions on women who had contracted German measles. However, by the late 1960s, the women's movement had evolved and physicians had reversed their former roles completely and joined the efforts to make abortions more available. In the fall of 1969, a legal precedent of significant magnitude began to unfold. Attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington met with Norma McCorvey (aka Jane Roe).
The Roe v. Wade (410 U.S. 113 1973) landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court granted women a constitutional right to abortion. In brief, the court ruled that women had a fundamental right to terminate pregnancy during the first trimester (three months) of a pregnancy because a fetus could not survive outside the womb. However, once a fetus reaches the stage at which it could survive (defined at 20 weeks) outside the womb, then the government has a compelling interest and can prohibit abortion. In 1989, the Supreme Court, with a majority of conservative justices, ostensibly returned the abortion issue to the American public.
In Webster v. Reproductive Health Services (1989) the court ruling shifted the abortion issue from federal regulatory codes to state regulatory codes. The court ruled that Missouri law (section 188 1986) is constitutional in its decision to restrict publicly funded abortion services and to require physicians to test for the viability of a fetus at 20 weeks (i.e. two-thirds the way through the second trimester of pregnancy).
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