Ruling

This is an image of Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the majority opinion in the case of Roe v. Wade.

This is an image of Justice Harry Blackmun, the author of the majority opinion in the case of Roe v. Wade.

The decision of Roe v Wade was issued by the United States Supreme Court on January 22, 1973. The justices of the Supreme Court voted in favor of Roe with a 7-2 decision, the majority agreeing that the right to an abortion was a fundamental right that is protected by the United States Constitution. The majority opinion, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, stated that the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right of privacy (Kogan). This right was previously outlined in the case Griswold v. Connecticut, states that the Fourteenth Amendment “is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy” (GRISWOLD v. CONNECTICUT).
Although the Court did recognize that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose, it also acknowledged the interests of the states to protect the potential of human life and the health of women as well. Therefore, the Court decided on starting a legal balancing test; this test weighs “the privacy interests of the mother against the interests of the state” (Kogan). The legal balancing test is based on the structure of pregnancies and how they occur in trimesters.
An abortion is statistically considered to be a safer option than childbirth during the first trimester of pregnancy, therefore the Court determined that the choice to abort the pregnancy should be left solely up to the mother. Moreover, this meant that any federal or state law that obstructed a woman’s right to have an abortion during the first trimester would be assumingly be considered unconstitutional. The Court decided that only in cases of protecting the health of the woman could the states regulate abortion during the second trimester of pregnancy. During the third and final trimester of pregnancy the fetus is able to survive on its own outside of the womb and is therefore considered “viable” (Kogan). Consequently, the Courts stated that states are allowed to create laws that ban and restrict abortions with the exception of cases in which an abortion would be necessary in order to preserve the life of the mother. After the decision of Roe v. Wade the legal balancing test based on the structure of pregnancies and how they occur in trimesters stood as the national standard of abortion laws for the following two decades (Kogan).

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