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ABORTION RULINGS OF THE SUPREME COURT This rese

f President Richard Nixon (Burger, Harry Blackmun, Lewis Powell and William Rehnquist). Blackmun and Powell joined with holdovers William Brennan, Potter Stewart, William Douglas and Thurgood Marshall to make up the seven to two Roe majority.

Roe v. Wade. In Roe and its companion case, Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S. 179 (1973), the Court held unconstitutional state statutes which criminalized abortion except where the life of the mother was endangered. Roe established that the right of a woman to choose to have an abortion was grounded in the right of privacy under the 5th, 9th and 14th Amendments. This right was not, however, absolute, especially after the first trimester of pregnancy when, Blackmun said for the majority at pp. 154-155, "a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life." Blackmun said at p. 158 that "a person" within the meaning of the 14th Amendment "does not include the unborn."

First Inroads on Roe v. Wade. Due to the lack of clarity in the Court's holding in Roe as to the circumstances under which a state could regulate abortion, Wardle & Wood (1982) said "massive and intense litigation" followed (p. 53). According to Woodward & Armstrong (1979), "the Right to Life movement had developed tremendous momentum since" Roe, especially among many Catholics and later the Christian Right (p. 413). However, O'Brien (2000) noted that "rather consistently since 1973, public opinion polls show that over 80 percent approve of abortions if the woman's health is endangered, if a pregnancy is due to rape or incest or [by a lesser margin] if there is a likelihood of fetal abnormality" (p. 16).

The primary thrust of the pro-life movement was to pass a constitutional amendment banning abortions, which gathered further momentum during the presidency of Ronald Reagan, but which never garnered sufficient votes for passage in Congress.

The ...

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ABORTION RULINGS OF THE SUPREME COURT This rese. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 22:00, March 28, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1707482.html