title: The Rolling Stones

text: In October 2010, the Stones released "Ladies and Gentlemen: The Rolling Stones" to cinemas and later to DVD. A digitally remastered version of the film was shown in select cinemas across the United States. Although originally released to cinemas in 1974, it had never been available for home release, apart from bootleg recordings. In October 2011, the Stones released "" to cinemas. A digitally remastered version of the film was shown in select cinemas across the US. This live performance was recorded during one show in Ft. Worth, Texas, in support of their 1978 US Tour and their album "Some Girls". The film was released (on DVD/Blu-ray Disc) on 15 November 2011. On 21 November, the band reissued "Some Girls" as a 2-CD deluxe edition. The second CD included twelve previously unreleased tracks (except "So Young", which was a B-side to "Out of Tears") from the sessions, with mostly newly recorded vocals by Jagger.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Rolling Stones celebrated their 50th anniversary in the summer of 2012 by releasing the book "The Rolling Stones: 50". A new take on the band's lip-and-tongue logo, designed by Shepard Fairey, was also revealed and used during the celebrations. Jagger's brother Chris performed a gig at The Rolling Stones Museum in Slovenia, in conjunction with the celebrations.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The documentary "Crossfire Hurricane", directed by Brett Morgen, was released in October 2012. He conducted approximately fifty hours of interviews for the film, including extensive interviews with Wyman and Taylor. This was the first official career-spanning documentary since "25x5: The Continuing Adventures of the Rolling Stones", filmed for their 25th anniversary in 1989. A new compilation album, "GRRR!", was released on 12 November. Available in four different formats, it included two new tracks, "Doom and Gloom" and "One More Shot", recorded at Studio Guillaume Tell in Paris, France, in the last few weeks of August 2012. The album went on to sell over two million copies worldwide. The music video for "Doom and Gloom", featuring Noomi Rapace, was released on 20 November.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In November 2012, the Stones began their 50 & Counting... tour at London's O Arena, where they were joined by Jeff Beck. At their second show, in London, Eric Clapton and Florence Welch joined the group onstage. The third anniversary concert took place on 8 December at the Barclays Center, Brooklyn, New York. The last two dates were at the Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey, on 13 and 15 December. Bruce Springsteen and blues–rock band the Black Keys joined the band on the final night. The stage on this tour was designed so that the lips could "inflate and deflate during different parts of the show." The band also played two songs at "".


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Stones played nineteen shows in the US in spring 2013 with various guest stars, including Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, before returning to the UK. On 29 June, the band performed at the 2013 Glastonbury Festival. They returned to Hyde Park in July, though it was not free like the 1969 concert. They performed the same set list as their 1969 concert at the venue. "Hyde Park Live", a live album recorded at the two Hyde Park gigs on 6 and 13 July, was released exclusively as a digital download through iTunes later that month. An award-winning live DVD, "", was released on 11 November.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In February 2014, the band embarked on their 14 On Fire tour, scheduled for the Middle East, Asia, Australia, and Europe and to go until the summer. On 17 March, Jagger's long-time partner L'Wren Scott died suddenly, resulting in the cancellation and rescheduling of the opening tour dates to October. On 4 June, the Rolling Stones performed for the first time in Israel. "Haaretz" described the concert as being "Historic with a capital H". In a 2015 interview with Jagger, when asked if retirement crosses his mind he stated, "Nah, not in the moment. I'm thinking about what the next tour is. I'm not thinking about retirement. I'm planning the next set of tours, so the answer is really, 'No, not really.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Stones embarked on their Latin American tour in February 2016. On 25 March, the band played a bonus show, a free open-air concert in Havana, Cuba, which was attended by an estimated 500,000 concert-goers. In June of that year, the Rolling Stones released "Totally Stripped", an expanded and reconceived edition of "Stripped", in multiple formats. Their concert on 25 March 2016 in Cuba was commemorated in the film "". It premiered on 23 September for one night only in more than a thousand theatres worldwide. The film "", a documentary of their 2016 Latin America tour, was shown in cinemas on 12 December for one night only; it came out on DVD and Blu-ray on 26 May 2017. The Stones performed at the Desert Trip festival held in Indio, California, playing two nights, 7 and 14 October, the same nights as Bob Dylan.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The band released "Blue & Lonesome" on 2 December 2016. The album consisted of 12 blues covers of artists such as Howlin' Wolf, Jimmy Reed, and Little Walter. Recording took place in British Grove Studios, London, in December 2015, and featured Eric Clapton on two tracks. The album reached number 1 in the UK, the second-highest opening sales week for an album that year. It also debuted at number 4 on the "Billboard" 200.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In July 2017, the "Toronto Sun" reported that the Stones were getting ready to record their first album of original material in more than a decade, but it had not been released and was further delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "On Air", a collection of 18 recordings the band performed on the BBC between 1963 and 1965, was released in December 2017. The album featured eight songs the band had never recorded or released commercially.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In May 2017, the No Filter Tour was announced, with fourteen shows in twelve different venues across Europe in September and October of the same year. It was later extended to go from May to July 2018, adding fourteen new dates across the UK and Europe, making it the band's first UK tour since 2006. In November 2018, the Stones announced plans to bring the No Filter Tour to US stadiums in 2019, with 13 shows set to run from April to June. In March 2019, it was announced that Jagger would be undergoing heart valve replacement surgery, forcing the band to postpone the 17-date North American leg of their No Filter Tour. On 4 April 2019, it was announced that Jagger had completed his heart valve procedure in New York, was recovering (in hospital) after a successful operation, and could be released in the following few days. On 16 May, the Rolling Stones announced that the No Filter Tour would resume on 21 June with the 17 postponed dates rescheduled up to the end of August. In March 2020, the No Filter Tour was postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Rolling Stones—featuring Jagger, Richards, Watts, and Wood at their homes—were one of the headline acts on Global Citizen's "One World: Together at Home" on-line and on-screen concert on 18 April 2020, a global event featuring dozens of artists and comedians to support frontline healthcare workers and the World Health Organization during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 23 April, Jagger announced through his Facebook page the release (the same day at 5pm BST) of the single "Living in a Ghost Town", a new Rolling Stones song recorded in London and Los Angeles in 2019 and finished in isolation (part of the new material that the band were recording in the studio before the COVID-19 lockdown), a song that the band "thought would resonate through the times we're living in" and their first original one since 2012. The song reached number 1 on the German Singles Chart, the first time the Stones had reached the top spot in 52 years, and making them the oldest artists ever to do so.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The band's 1973 album "Goats Head Soup" was reissued on 4 September 2020 and featured previously unreleased outtakes: such as "Criss Cross", which was released as a single and music video on 9 July 2020; "Scarlet", featuring Jimmy Page; and "All the Rage". On 11 September 2020, the album topped the UK Albums Chart as the Rolling Stones became the first band to top the chart across six different decades.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In August 2021, it was announced that Watts would undergo an unspecified medical procedure and would not perform on the remainder of the No Filter tour; the longtime Stones associate Steve Jordan filled in as drummer. Watts died on 24 August 2021, at the age of 80, in a London hospital with his family around him. For 10 days, the contents of the Rolling Stones' official website were replaced with a picture of Watts, in his memory. On 27 August, the band's social media accounts shared a montage of pictures and videos of Watts. Going forward, the Rolling Stones would show pictures and videos of Watts at the beginning of each concert on the No Filter Tour. The short segment is roughly a minute long and plays a simple drum track by Watts. They became the highest-earning live act of 2021. The Rolling Stones began a new tour in 2022, with Jordan on drums.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Rolling Stones have assimilated various musical genres into their own collective sound. Throughout the band's career, their musical contributions have been marked by a continual reference to and reliance on musical styles including blues, psychedelia, R&B, country, folk, reggae, dance, and world music—exemplified by Jones' collaboration with the Master Musicians of Jajouka—as well as traditional English styles that use stringed instruments such as harps. Brian Jones experimented with the use of non-traditional instruments, such as the sitar and slide guitar, in their early days. The group started out covering early rock 'n' roll and blues songs, and have never stopped playing live or recording cover songs.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Jagger and Richards had a shared admiration of Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters, and Howlin' Wolf. Little Walter influenced Brian Jones. Richards recalls, "He was more into T-Bone Walker and jazz blues stuff. We'd turn him onto Chuck Berry and say, 'Look, it's all the same shit, man, and you can do it. Charlie Watts, a traditional jazz drummer, was also introduced to the blues through his association with the pair, stating in 2003, "Keith and Brian turned me on to Jimmy Reed and people like that. I learned that Earl Phillips was playing on those records like a jazz drummer, playing swing, with a straight four." Jagger, recalling when he first heard the likes of Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters, Fats Domino, and other major American R&B artists, said it "seemed the most real thing" he had heard up to that point. Similarly, Keith Richards, describing the first time he listened to Muddy Waters, said it was the "most powerful music [he had] ever heard ... the most expressive". He also recalled, "when you think of some dopey, spotty seventeen year old from Dartford, who wants to be Muddy Waters—and there were a lot of us—in a way, very pathetic, but in another way, [it was] very ... heartwarming".


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Despite the Rolling Stones' predilection for blues and R&B numbers on their early live set lists, the first original compositions by the band reflected a more wide-ranging interest. Critic Richie Unterberger described the first Jagger/Richards single, "Tell Me (You're Coming Back)", as a "pop rock ballad ... When [Jagger and Richards] began to write songs, they were usually not derived from the blues, but were often surprisingly fey, slow, Mersey-type pop numbers". "As Tears Go By", the ballad originally written for Marianne Faithfull, was one of the first songs written by Jagger and Richards and one of many written by the duo for other artists. Jagger said of the song, "It's a relatively mature song considering the rest of the output at the time. And we didn't think of [recording] it, because the Rolling Stones were a butch blues group." The Rolling Stones did later record a version which became a top five hit in the US.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Of their early writing experience, Richards said, "The amazing thing is that although Mick and I thought these songs were really puerile and kindergarten-time, every one that got put out made a decent showing in the charts. That gave us extraordinary confidence to carry on, because at the beginning songwriting was something we were going to do in order to say to Andrew [Loog Oldham], 'Well, at least we gave it a try ... Jagger opined, "We were very pop-orientated. We didn't sit around listening to Muddy Waters; we listened to everything. In some ways it's easy to write to order ... Keith and I got into the groove of writing those kind of tunes; they were done in ten minutes. I think we thought it was a bit of a laugh, and it turned out to be something of an apprenticeship for us."


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The writing of "The Last Time", the Rolling Stones' first major single, proved a turning point. Richards called it "a bridge into thinking about writing for the Stones. It gave us a level of confidence; a pathway of how to do it." The song was based on a traditional gospel song popularised by the Staple Singers, but the Rolling Stones' number features a distinctive guitar riff, played by Brian Jones. Prior to the emergence of Jagger/Richards as the Stones' songwriters, the band members occasionally were given collective credit under the pseudonym Nanker Phelge. Some songs attributed to Nanker Phelge have been re-attributed to Jagger/Richards.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Beginning with Jones and continuing with Wood, the Rolling Stones have developed what Richards refers to as the "ancient art of weaving" responsible for part of their sound—the interplay between two guitarists on stage. Unlike most bands, the Stones follow Richards' lead rather than the drummer's (Watts). Likewise, Watts is primarily a jazz player who was able to bring that genre's influences to the style of the band's drumming. The following of Richards' lead has led to conflicts between Jagger and Richards and they have been known to annoy one another, but they have both agreed it makes for a better record; Watts in particular has praised Jagger's production skills. In the studio, the band have tended to use a fluid personnel for recordings and not use the same players for each song. Guest pianists were commonplace on recordings; several songs on "Beggars Banquet" are driven by Nicky Hopkins' piano playing. On "Exile on Main St.", Richards plays bass on three tracks while Taylor plays on four.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Richards started using open tunings for rhythm parts (often in conjunction with a capo), most prominently an open-E or open-D tuning in 1968. Beginning in 1969, he often used 5-string open-G tuning (with the lower 6th string removed), as heard on the 1969 single "Honky Tonk Women", "Brown Sugar" ("Sticky Fingers", 1971), "Tumbling Dice" (capo IV), "Happy" (capo IV), ("Exile on Main St.", 1972), and "Start Me Up" ("Tattoo You", 1981).


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The feuds between Jagger and Richards originated in the 1970s when Richards was a heroin addict, resulting in Jagger managing the band's affairs for many years. When Richards got himself off heroin and became more present in decision making, Jagger was not used to it and did not like having his authority diminished. This led to the period Richards has referred to as "World War III".


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Musical collaboration between members of the band and supporting musicians was key, due to the fluid lineups typically experienced by the band in the studio, as tracks tended to be recorded "by whatever members of the group happened to be around at the time of the sessions". Over time, Jagger has developed into the template for rock frontmen and, with the help of the Stones, has, in the words of the "Telegraph", "changed music" through his contributions to it as a pioneer of the modern music industry.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Since their formation in 1962, the Rolling Stones have survived multiple feuds. They have released 30 studio albums, 23 live albums, 12 official compilation albums, many recognised bootleg recordings, all of which compromise over 340 songs. According to OfficialCharts.com, the Stones are ranked the fourth bestselling group of all time. Their top single is "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction", regarded by many at the time as "the classic example of rock and roll". The Stones contributed to the blues lexicon, creating their own "codewords" and slang, such as "losing streak" for menstrual period, which they have used throughout their catalogue of songs. They pioneered the "raw, blues-based sound" that came to define hard rock and has been viewed as the musical "vanguard of a major transfusion" of various cultural attitudes, making them accessible to youth in Britain and the rest of the world. Muddy Waters was quoted as saying that the Rolling Stones and other English bands piqued the interest of American youth in blues musicians. After they came to the United States, sales of Waters' albums—and those of other blues musicians—increased public interest, thus helping to reconnect the country with its own music.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The Rolling Stones have sold over 240 million albums worldwide. In 2010, "Rolling Stone" ranked them as fourth on their list of the Greatest Artists of All Time; three years later, "Rolling Stone" declared them the "most definitional band that rock & roll has produced". "The Telegraph" has called Mick Jagger "the Rolling Stone who changed music". The band has been the subject of numerous documentaries and were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Pete Townshend in 1989. The Rolling Stones have inspired and mentored new generations of musical artists both as a band and individually. They are also credited with changing the "whole business model of popular music". The only artists to top the UK Album Charts in six different decades, they are tied with Elvis Presley and Robbie Williams for the second most number 1 albums on the Official UK Chart, surpassed only by the Beatles. In 2002, CNN called the Stones "far and away the most successful act in rock today", adding, "since 1989 alone, the band has generated more than $1.5 billion in gross revenues. That total includes sales of records, song rights, merchandising, sponsorship money, and touring. The Stones have made more money than U2, or Springsteen, or Michael Jackson, or Britney Spears, or the Who—or whoever. Sure, Mick attended the London School of Economics, but his greatest talent, besides strutting and singing, is his ability to surround himself and the rest of the band with a group of very able executives."


title: The Rolling Stones

text: In a review of the band's 2020 acoustic rendition of "You Can't Always Get What You Want" for Global Citizen's "One World: Together At Home" on-line and on-screen concert, "Billboard" stated that they are "still the masters of delivering unforgettable live performances." On their enduring appeal and reinvention, in 2016 Rich Cohen of "The Wall Street Journal" wrote,


title: The Rolling Stones

text: The band have received and been nominated for multiple awards including three Grammy Awards (and 12 nominations) and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1986, the Juno Award for International Entertainer of the Year in 1991, U.K.'s Jazz FM Awards Album of the Year (2017) for their album "Blue & Lonesome", and "NME" ("New Musical Express") awards such as best live band and the NME award for best music film, for their documentary "Crossfire Hurricane".


title: The Rolling Stones

text: On Jagger's 75th birthday, scientists named seven fossil stoneflies after present and former members of the band. Two species, "Petroperla mickjaggeri" and "Lapisperla keithrichardsi", were placed within a new family Petroperlidae. The new family was named in honour of the Rolling Stones, derived from the Greek "petra" that stands for "stone". The scientists referred to the fossils as "Rolling Stoneflies". This theme was continued when NASA named a rock disturbed by the thrusters of the Mars InSight Lander "Rolling Stones Rock", as announced by Robert Downey Jr. during the band's 22 August 2019 performance in Pasadena, California. That year, "Billboard" magazine ranked the Rolling Stones second on their list of the "Greatest Artists of All Time", based on US chart success. In 2022, the band featured on a series of UK postage stamps issued by the Royal Mail and their 60th anniversary was commemorated with a collectible coin by the Royal Mint.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: Since their first concert on 12 July 1962 at the Marquee Club in London, the Rolling Stones have performed more than two thousand concerts around the world and have gone on over 48 tours of varying length, including three of the highest-grossing tours of all time: Bridges to Babylon, Voodoo Lounge, and A Bigger Bang.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: From small clubs and hotels in London with little room for Jagger to move around to selling out stadiums worldwide, Rolling Stones tours have changed significantly over the decades. The Stones' early setups were simple compared to what they became later in the band's career, when elaborate stage designs, pyrotechnics, and giant screens were used. By the time the Stones toured America in 1969, they began to fill large halls and arenas, such as The Forum in Inglewood, California. They were also using more equipment, including lighting rigs and better sound equipment, than they had used in clubs. The 1969 tour is considered a "great watershed tour" by Mick Jagger because they "started hanging the sound and therefore hanging the lights". Attributing the birth of arena rock to the Stones 1969 US tour, "The Guardian" ranked it 19 on their list of the 50 key events in rock music history. Before this tour the loudest sound at large-capacity shows was often the crowd, so the Stones used lighting and sound systems that ensured they could be seen and heard in the biggest arenas. "The Guardian" commented that their "combination of front-of-house excellence and behind-the-scenes savvy took the business of touring to an entirely new level." During the 1972 tour, the Stones developed a complex light show that included giant mirrors that bounced the light off them.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: During the 1975 Tour of the Americas, arena shows became an industry for the band, and the Stones hired a new lighting director, Jules Fisher. The props the band used on stage increased in both size and sophistication, similar to those on Broadway. They started to use multiple stages, from which they would select for a particular show. On this tour they had two versions of what Jagger referred to as the "lotus stage". One version had a large Venetian (cylindrical) curtain, and the other had leaves that began in a folded up position and opened during the beginning of the concert. This period also included a variety of props, including inflatable penises and other gimmicks, and incorporated a number of circus tricks.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: During the 1981–1982 American tour, the Stones worked with Japanese designer Kazuhide Yamazari in constructing their stages for stadium-sized locations and audiences. During this period, stages increased in size to include runways and movable sections of the stage going out into the audience. This tour used coloured panels and was one of the last Stones tours to do so before switching to devices such as video screens. Stadium shows provided a new challenge for the band.


title: The Rolling Stones

text: As time went on, their props and stage equipment became increasingly sophisticated. When the Stones began to fill stadium-sized venues, or larger, they ran into the problem of the audience no longer being able to see them. This was particularly the case when they performed a free concert for an estimated 1.5 million people in Rio de Janeiro on the "A Bigger Bang" tour in 2006. The show required over 500 lights, hundreds of speakers, and a video screen almost in length. Due to the length of the beach on which the Stones performed, sound systems had to be set up in a relay pattern down the length of the beach, to keep the sound in sync with the music from the stage; for every of beach, the sound would be delayed by an additional second.


The Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT; Turkish : ) is the national public broadcaster of Turkey, founded in 1964. TRT was for many years the only television and radio provider in Turkey. Before the introduction of commercial radio in 1990, and subsequently commercial television in 1992, it held a monopoly on broadcasting. More recent deregulation of the Turkish television broadcasting market produced analogue cable television. Today, TRT broadcasts around the world, especially in Europe, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australia.


title: Turkish Radio and Television Corporation

text: Around 70% of TRT's funding comes from a tax levied on electricity bills and a license tax on television and radio receivers. As these are hypothecated taxes, as opposed to the money allocated to general government funds, the principle is similar to that of the television licence levied in a number of other countries, such as the BBC in the United Kingdom. The rest of TRT's funding comes from government grants (around 20%), with the final 10% coming from advertising.


text: TRT's predecessor, ""Türkiye Radyoları"" was one of 23 founding broadcasting organisations of the European Broadcasting Union in 1950; it would return to the EBU fold as TRT in 1972. The original company started radio test broadcasts in 1926, with a studio built in Istanbul in 1927 and a studio in Ankara following in 1928.


text: Test transmissions started on TRT 1 on 31 January 1968. A full national television schedule, which at that time linked the areas in and around Ankara, Istanbul, and İzmir, started in December 1971. TRT renewed its membership in the European Broadcasting Union (having been a founding member previously offering only radio) starting on 26 August 1972, with Turkey's first Eurovision Network event, a football match (Turkey vs. Italy), airing across Europe on 13 January 1973. TRT also joined the Asia-Pacific Broadcasting Union in 1976, the same year their first colour television test was showcased via laboratory at the general assembly of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.


text: All programming was in black and white from the start of test transmissions in 1968 until the New Year's Eve programming on 31 December 1981, when the first on-air colour tests started. The entire lineup switched to colour on 15 March 1984.


text: TRT organised the Eurovision Song Contest 2004, with the semi-final on 12 May 2004 and the final on 15 May 2004.


text: In January 2018, TRT celebrated its 50th anniversary. All TRT channels broadcast a collection of old idents and news studio (still being modern logo) as part of the celebration in form of nostalgia. Each day new idents were made. This event also happened in 1978, 1988, 1998 and 2008.


text: After the 15 July coup attempt, many people in TRT were either fired or forced workers to retire. According to Haber-Sen Union; 1800 of workers were forced to retire. The union protested this situation on 21 November 2018 in Istanbul, Ankara, Diyarbakir and Brussels.<ref name="https://www.amerikaninsesi.com/a/trt-eylem-ankara-istanbul/4668372.html"></ref> During the protests, TRT employees stated that they were exposed to psychological pressure defined as MOBING. TRT employee Osman Köse stated that more than 3,000 TRT employees have been transferred to other state institutions and 5,000 people have been dismissed from TRT.


text: Many of TRT employees were dismissed and sent to prison by the reason of the 15 July coup attempt. According to the list that published in the ‘Resmi Gazete’ of the state, 312 people were dismissed.<ref name="https://www.medyaloji.net/son-haber/trtden-ihrac-edilenlerin-tam-listesi_23646266.html"></ref> According to the report provided by the non-governmental organisation-Sweden-based NGO Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF), approximately 150 TRT employees were accused of being a member of a ‘terrorist organisation’. Many of them were arrested and imprisoned.<ref name="https://stockholmcf.org/updated-list/"></ref>


text: All television channels can be watched via Turksat satellite in Europe in Asia and terrestrial in Turkey and neighbouring countries. Some of them are also found on cable TV systems.


text: TRT has a special TV channel for Kurdish that broadcasts on a 24-hour / 7-day basis called TRT Kurdî and other TV and Radio stations that broadcast programmes in the local languages and dialects like Armenian, Arabic, Bosnian and Circassian a few hours a week.


text: Another special TV channel aimed at the Turkic world, TRT Avaz was launched on 21 March 2009 and broadcasts in the Azerbaijani, Bosnian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek and Turkmen languages; while the TRT Arabic television channel started broadcasting on 4 April 2010.


text: TRT started teletext trial-runs with the name “Telegün” on 3 December 1990. All TV channels are broadcasting the teletext. 6 channels are also broadcasting their programs with the Electronic program guide (EPG).


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the Court ruled that the Constitution of the United States conferred the right to have an abortion. The decision struck down many federal and state abortion laws, and caused an ongoing abortion debate in the United States about whether, or to what extent, abortion should be legal, who should decide the legality of abortion, and what the role of moral and religious views in the political sphere should be. The decision also shaped debate concerning which methods the Supreme Court should use in constitutional adjudication.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The case was brought by Norma McCorveyknown by the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe"who, in 1969, became pregnant with her third child. McCorvey wanted an abortion, but she lived in Texas where abortion was illegal, except when necessary to save the mother's life. Her attorneys, Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee, filed a lawsuit on her behalf in U.S. federal court against her local district attorney, Henry Wade, alleging that Texas's abortion laws were unconstitutional. A special three-judge court of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas heard the case and ruled in her favor. The parties appealed this ruling to the Supreme Court.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision holding that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a fundamental "right to privacy", which protects a pregnant woman's right to an abortion. The Court also held that the right to abortion is not absolute and must be balanced against the government's interests in protecting women's health and prenatal life. The Court resolved these competing interests by announcing a pregnancy trimester timetable to govern all abortion regulations in the United States. The Court also classified the right to abortion as "fundamental", which required courts to evaluate challenged abortion laws under the "strict scrutiny" standard, the most stringent level of judicial review in the United States.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The Supreme Court's decision in "Roe" was among the most controversial in U.S. history. In addition to the dissent, "Roe" was criticized by some in the legal community, including some in support of abortion rights who thought that "Roe" reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way, and some called the decision a form of judicial activism. Others argued that "Roe" did not go far enough, as it was placed within the framework of civil rights rather than the broader human rights. Anti-abortion politicians and activists sought for decades to restrict abortion or overrule the decision; polls into the 21st century showed that a plurality and a majority, especially into the late 2010s to early 2020s, opposed overruling "Roe". Despite criticism of the decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed "Roe" "central holding" in its 1992 decision, "Planned Parenthood v. Casey." "Casey" overruled "Roe" trimester framework and abandoned its "strict scrutiny" standard in favor of an "undue burden" test.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In June 2022, the Supreme Court overruled "Roe" in "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization" on the grounds that the substantive right to abortion was not "deeply rooted in this Nation's history or tradition", nor considered a right when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and was unknown in U.S. law until "Roe". This view was disputed by some legal historians and criticized by the dissenting opinion, which argued that many other rights—contraception, interracial marriage, and same-sex marriage—did not exist when the Due Process Clause was ratified in 1868, and thus, by the "Dobbs" majority's logic, were not constitutionally protected. The decision was supported and opposed by the anti-abortion and abortion-rights movements in the United States, respectively, and was generally condemned by international observers and foreign leaders.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: According to historian James C. Mohr, there was an earlier acceptance of abortion, and opposition to abortion, including anti-abortion laws, only came into being in the 19th century. It was not always a crime and was generally not illegal until quickening, which occurred between the fourth and sixth month of pregnancy. In 1821, Connecticut passed the first state statute legislating abortion in the United States; it forbade the use of poisons in abortion. After the 1840s, there was an upsurge in abortions. In the 19th century, the medical profession was generally opposed to abortion, which Mohr argues arose due to competition between men with medical degrees and women without one, such as Madame Drunette. The practice of abortion was one of the first medical specialities, and was practiced by unlicensed people; well-off people had abortions and paid well. The press played a key role in rallying support for anti-abortion laws. According to James S. Witherspoon, a former briefing attorney for the Court of Appeals for the Third Supreme Judicial District of Texas, abortion was not legal before quickening in 27 out of all 37 states in 1868; by the end of 1883, 30 of the 37 states, six of the ten U.S. territories, and the Kingdom of Hawai'i, where abortion had once been common, had codified laws that restricted abortion before quickening. More than 10 states allowed pre-quickening abortions, before the quickening distinction was eliminated, and every state had anti-abortion laws by 1900. According to Leslie J. Reagan, a professor of history and law at the University of Illinois, pre-quickening abortions were legal under common law, like in early modern England, and widely accepted in practice in the early United States.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In the United States, before specific statutes were made against it, abortion was sometimes considered a common law offense, such as by William Blackstone and James Wilson. In all states throughout the 19th and early 20th century, pre-quickening abortions were always considered to be actions without a lawful purpose. This meant that if the mother died, the individual performing the abortion was guilty of murder. This aspect of common law regarded pre-quickening abortions as a type of inchoate offense. Negative liberty rights from common law do not apply in situations caused by consensual or voluntary behavior, which allowed for abortions of fetuses conceived in a consensual manner to be common law offenses. The majority opinion for "Roe v. Wade" authored in Justice Harry Blackmun's name would later state that the criminalization of abortion did not have "roots in the English common-law tradition", and was thought to return to the more permissive state of pre-1820s abortion laws.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: One purpose for banning abortion was to preserve the life of the fetus, another was to protect the life of the mother, another was to create deterrence against future abortions, and another was to avoid injuring the mother's ability to have children. Judges did not always distinguish between which purpose was more important. Rather than arresting the women having the abortions, legal officials were more likely to interrogate them to obtain evidence against the individual doing the abortions. This law enforcement strategy was a response to juries which refused to convict women prosecuted for abortion in the 19th century. In 1973, Justice Blackmun's opinion stated that "the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: By 1971, elective abortion on demand was effectively available in Alaska, California, Hawaii, New York, Washington, and Washington, D.C. Some women traveled to jurisdictions where it was legal, although not all could afford to. In 1971, Shirley Wheeler was charged with manslaughter after Florida hospital staff reported her illegal abortion to the police. Wheeler was one of a few women who were prosecuted by their states for abortion. She received a sentence of two years probation, and as an option under her probation, chose to move back into her parents' house in North Carolina. The Playboy Foundation donated $3,500 to her defense fund and "Playboy" denounced her prosecution. The Boston Women's Abortion Coalition raised money and held a rally where attendees listened to speakers from the Women's National Abortion Action Coalition (WONAAC). Her conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court of Florida.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Sarah Weddington recruited Linda Coffee to help her with abortion litigation. Their first plaintiffs were a married couple; they joined after the woman heard Coffee give a speech. The intended suit would state abortions were medically necessary for the woman. The woman had a neurochemical disorder and it was considered medically necessary that she not give birth or raise children, yet they did not want to abstain from sex, and contraception might fail. The attorneys were concerned about standing since the woman was not pregnant. Weddington later wrote that they "needed to find a pregnant Texas woman who wanted an abortion and would be willing to be a plaintiff." They also wanted to increase the likelihood that the panel selection would help them win in court. They wanted to present their case to a three-judge panel which included a judge they thought would be sympathetic, which was a possibility only by filing a case in Dallas. If either of the two cases they filed in Dallas were assigned favorably, they intended to ask for the other one to be consolidated with it.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: At first, Weddington was unsuccessful in finding a suitable pregnant woman. In June 1969, 21-year-old Norma McCorvey discovered she was pregnant with her third child. Ordinarily, lawyers are not allowed to directly solicit clients without any prior relationship, but McCorvey's situation qualified for an exception in the no solicitation rule which allows lawyers to solicit new clients for public interest cases. According to a sworn statement made in 2003, McCorvey asked if she had what was needed to be part of Weddington and Coffee's lawsuit. She recounted being told, "Yes. You're white. You're young, pregnant, and you want an abortion." Both McCorvey's whiteness and her lower social class were crucial factors in the attorneys' choice to have her as their plaintiff.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: McCorvey recounted that the lawyers asked if she thought abortion should be legal. McCorvey said she did not know. Weddington told her, "It's just a piece of tissue. You just missed your period." This convinced McCorvey that abortion should be legal. She agreed to let them represent her under the impression that she would be able to eventually get a legal abortion. She smoked an illegal drug and drank wine so she would not have to think about her pregnancy. McCorvey gave birth to a daughter at Dallas Osteopathic Hospital on June 2, 1970; the baby, Shelley Lynn Thornton, was adopted by a couple in Texas.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1970, Coffee and Weddington filed "Roe v. Wade" as a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas on behalf of McCorvey under the legal pseudonym "Jane Roe", and they also filed "Does v. Wade" on behalf of the married couple. The defendant for both cases was Dallas County District Attorney, Henry Wade, who represented the State of Texas. Weddington later stated that she "saw "Roe" as part of a much larger effort by many attorneys" whose collective interests she represented. James H. Hallford was a physician who was in the process of being prosecuted for performing two abortions. The Court allowed him to join the suit as a physician-intervenor on behalf of Jane Roe.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: One of the cases was assigned to a panel of judges which included Judge Sarah T. Hughes, who they thought would be sympathetic, and the cases were consolidated. In accordance with the Court's rules, two of the judges hearing the consolidated case were assigned on the basis of their judicial district, and the third judge on the panel was a circuit court judge chosen by the appellate Chief Justice of the United States.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The consolidated lawsuit was heard by a three-judge panel consisting of district court judges Sarah T. Hughes and William McLaughlin Taylor Jr. and appellate judge Irving Loeb Goldberg of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Hughes knew Coffee, who clerked for her from 1968–1969. Additionally, the backgrounds of two other judges also gave Weddington and Coffee hope they would be successful. On June 17, 1970, the three judges unanimously ruled in McCorvey's favor and declared the Texas law unconstitutional, finding that it violated the right to privacy found in the Ninth Amendment. The court relied on Justice Arthur Goldberg's 1965 concurrence in "Griswold v. Connecticut". Yet the Court also declined to grant an injunction against enforcing the law, and ruled against the married couple on the basis that they lacked standing. Since Wade said he would continue to prosecute people for performing abortions, the lack of an injunction meant that McCorvey could not get an abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: "Roe v. Wade" reached the Supreme Court when both sides appealed in 1970. The case continued under the name "Roe v. Wade" instead of being switched to "Wade v. Roe". The justices delayed taking action on "Roe" and a closely related case, "Doe v. Bolton", until they had first decided certain other cases. One case they decided first was "Younger v. Harris". The justices felt the appeals raised difficult questions on judicial jurisdiction.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Another case was "United States v. Vuitch", in which they considered the constitutionality of a District of Columbia statute which banned abortion except when the mother's life or health was endangered. The Court upheld the statute on the grounds that the word "health" was not unconstitutionally vague and placed the burden of proof concerning dangers to the life or health of the mother on the prosecutor instead of on the person who had performed the abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Justice William O. Douglas wrote a lengthy dissenting opinion to this case. He argued that the right to marital privacy and the limitation of family size from "Griswold v. Connecticut" also applied here, although he acknowledged that "on the other side is the belief of many that the fetus, once formed, is a member of the human family and that mere personal inconvenience cannot justify the fetus' destruction." He also challenged the majority opinion with a series of hypothetical questions asking whether "health" might also include the stigma of having an illegitimate child, anxiety from the pregnancy being unwanted, the physical work of raising a child, the financial drain from the added expense of another child, and far off health risks that may never actually materialize in a similar fashion to how risks were warded off with prophylactic appendectomy. Douglas' dissent made a similar legal argument to the one used two years later in "Roe v. Wade". The following day after their decision was announced, the court voted to hear both "Roe" and "Doe".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: According to Blackmun, Stewart felt the cases were a straightforward application of "Younger v. Harris", and enough justices agreed to hear the cases in order to review whether they would be suitable for federal as opposed to only state courts. This sort of review was not about the constitutionality of abortion and would not have required evidence, witnesses, or a record of facts. The oral argument was scheduled by the full Court for December 13, 1971. Before the Court could hear the oral argument, Justices Hugo Black and John Marshall Harlan II retired. Chief Justice Warren Burger asked Justice Potter Stewart and Justice Blackmun to determine whether "Roe" and "Doe", among others, should be heard as scheduled. They recommended that the Court continue on as scheduled.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: As she began speaking for the oral argument, Sarah Weddington was unaware that the Court had decided to hear the case in order to decide which courts had jurisdiction to hear it rather than as an attempt to overturn abortion laws in a broad ruling. She began by bringing up constitutional reasons why the Court should overturn Texas's abortion law, but Justice Stewart asked questions directed towards the jurisdiction question instead. Weddington replied that she saw no problem with jurisdiction and continued to talk about a constitutional right to abortion. Overall, she spent between 20 and 30 minutes discussing jurisdiction and procedure instead of constitutional issues.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In his opening argument in defense of the abortion restrictions, attorney Jay Floyd made what was later described as the "worst joke in legal history". Appearing against two female lawyers, Floyd began, "Mr. Chief Justice and may it please the Court. It's an old joke, but when a man argues against two beautiful ladies like this, they are going to have the last word." His remark was met with cold silence; one observer thought that Chief Justice Burger "was going to come right off the bench at him. He glared him down."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: McCorvey did not attend either of the oral arguments along with her two lawyers. After talking McCorvey out of getting an illegal abortion and getting her name signed on an affidavit for the lawsuit, Weddington did not speak again with McCorvey until four months after "Roe" was decided.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After the first argument session, Burger assigned the task of writing the Court's opinions for both "Roe" and "Doe" to Blackmun. Douglas suggested to Blackmun that Burger assigned the opinions to him out of malicious intention, but Blackmun disagreed. He knew that Burger could not write it himself because the abortion was too controversial, and his opinions might get rejected by the majority. He also understood why the other justices could not be assigned to write the opinions: Douglas was too liberal for the public to accept his word. Likewise, he might split the Court's vote by writing something radical. In addition, the quality of his opinions had suffered recently. Brennan was the only Catholic on the Court, and he would have to face Catholic political groups which were against abortion. If Marshall wrote the opinions, the ruling would be perceived as being directed towards African Americans, and he would have to face the displeasure of African American political groups. Stewart would have trouble going far enough in legalizing abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: At this point, Black and Harlan had been replaced by William Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell Jr., but the first argument had already occurred before they became Supreme Court justices. Justice Blackmun worked on a preliminary opinion for "Roe" which argued that Texas's law was unconstitutionally vague. This approach accommodated the claims of some doctors who were concerned that prosecutors might disagree with them over what constituted "life". Blackmun thought this approach would be a good way to avoid controversy which would come with saying there was a fundamental right to abortion. Brennan and Douglas disagreed with Blackmun and wrote to him that instead he needed to focus on privacy. After communicating with the other justices, Blackmun felt that his opinion did not adequately reflect his liberal colleagues' views. In March 1972, the court issued a ruling in "Eisenstadt v. Baird", a landmark case which applied the earlier marital privacy right now also to unmarried individuals.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Douglas wrote to Blackmun in May 1972 that he thought there were four judges who were definitely willing to rule in the majority—himself, Brennan, Stewart, and Marshall. Blackmun at one point thought all seven justices wanted to vote in the majority.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In May 1972, Blackmun proposed that the case be reargued. Justice Douglas threatened to write a dissent from the reargument order because he and the other liberal justices were suspicious that Rehnquist and Powell would vote to uphold the Texas abortion statutes. He was coaxed out of the action by his colleagues, and instead his dissent was merely mentioned in the reargument order without further statement or opinion.The case was reargued on October 11, 1972. Weddington continued to represent the pseudonymous Jane Roe, and Texas Assistant Attorney General Robert C. Flowers replaced Jay Floyd for Texas.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: A June 1972 memo written by Douglas to his colleagues discussing the case was leaked to and published in "The Washington Post" before the decision was published.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Blackmun continued to work on his opinions in both cases over the summer recess, even though there was no guarantee that he would be assigned to write them again. Over the recess, he spent a week researching the history of abortion at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where he had worked in the 1950s. He talked daily on the phone with George Frampton, his 28-year old law clerk who stayed behind in Washington, D.C. Frampton researched the history of abortion using a book authored by Lawrence Lader, the founding chairman of what is now called NARAL Pro-Choice America. Blackmun's papers made available since his death contain at least seven citations for Lader's 1966 book, "Abortion". Chapter 16 of his book, "A Blueprint for Changing U.S. Abortion Laws" predicted that if abortion were to be legalized, "the possibility of community opposition is slight". Lader also predicted that "If such a theoretical case was carried to a high court, perhaps even the U.S. Supreme Court, and the judges confirmed a broad interpretation of the meaning of a threat to life, undoubtedly a landmark in abortion decisions would be reached."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The historical survey for "Roe" also referenced two articles by Cyril Means, who served as counsel to NARAL. In the articles, Means misrepresented the common law tradition in ways that were helpful to the "Roe" side. Roy Lucas, the principal attorney assisting Weddington and Coffee, had previously received a memo from his colleague David M. Tundermann about Means's scholarship. The memo stated that the conclusions in Means's articles "sometimes strain credibility." It also stated:


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Where the important thing is to win the case no matter how, however, I suppose I agree with Means's technique: begin with a scholarly attempt at historical research; if it doesn't work, fudge it as necessary; write a piece so long that others will read only your introduction and conclusion; then keep citing it until courts begin picking it up. This preserves the guise of impartial scholarship while advancing the proper ideological goals.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After the Court held the second argument session, Powell said he would agree with Blackmun's conclusion but pushed for "Roe" to be the lead of the two abortion cases being considered. Powell also suggested that the Court strike down the Texas law on privacy grounds. Byron White was unwilling to sign on to Blackmun's opinion, and Justice Rehnquist had already decided to dissent.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: During the drafting process, the justices discussed the trimester framework at great length. Powell had suggested that the point where the state could intervene be placed at viability, which Thurgood Marshall supported as well. In an internal memo to the other justices before the majority decision was published, Justice Blackmun wrote: "You will observe that I have concluded that the end of the first trimester is critical. This is arbitrary, but perhaps any other selected point, such as quickening or viability, is equally arbitrary." In the same memo he suggested that the end of the first trimester seemed more likely to get support from other justices and allowed states the ability to adjust their statutes. He was of the impression that doctors were concerned that recovering abortion patients would take up too many hospital beds, and that abortion patients later than the first trimester were more likely to require hospital beds than those whose fetuses were aborted earlier. Contrary to the justices who preferred viability, Douglas preferred the first-trimester line. Stewart said the lines were "legislative" and wanted more flexibility and consideration paid to state legislatures, though he joined Blackmun's decision. William Brennan proposed abandoning frameworks based on the age of the fetus and instead allowing states to regulate the procedure based on its safety for the mother.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court issued a 7–2 decision in favor of "Jane Roe" (Norma McCorvey) holding that women in the United States had a fundamental right to choose whether to have abortions without excessive government restriction and striking down Texas's abortion ban as unconstitutional. The decision was issued together with a companion case, "Doe v. Bolton", which involved a similar challenge to Georgia's abortion laws.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Larry Hammond, a law clerk for Powell, gave a "Time" reporter a copy of the decision "on background", expecting that it would be issued by the court before the next issue of "Time" was published; however, due to a delay in the decision's release, the text of the decision appeared on newsstands a few hours before it was published by the court. Burger demanded a meeting with "Time" editors and punishment for the leaker. Powell refused Hammond's resignation, on the grounds that "Hammond had been double-crossed" by the reporter.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After reciting the facts of the case, the Court's opinion first addressed procedure and justiciability. This included mootness, a legal doctrine that prevents American federal courts from hearing cases that have ceased to be "live" controversies because of intervening events. Under a normal application of the doctrine, McCorvey's appeal would have been considered moot because she had already given birth to her child and therefore no longer had a pregnancy to abort.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The Court concluded that an established exception to the mootness doctrine allows consideration of cases that are "capable of repetition, yet evading review". Blackmun noted that McCorvey might get pregnant again, and pregnancy would normally conclude more quickly than an appellate process: "If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After dealing with mootness and standing, the Court proceeded to the main issue of the case: the constitutionality of Texas's abortion law. The Court first surveyed abortion's status throughout the legal history of Roman law and the Anglo-American common law. It also reviewed the developments of medical procedures and technology used in abortions.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After its historical surveys, the Court introduced the concept of a constitutional "right to privacy" that it said had been intimated in its earlier decisions "Meyer v. Nebraska" and "Pierce v. Society of Sisters", which involved parental control over childrearing, and "Griswold v. Connecticut", which involved the use of contraception. Then, "with virtually no further explanation of the privacy value", the Court ruled that regardless of exactly which provisions were involved, the U.S. Constitution's guarantees of liberty covered a right to privacy that protected a pregnant woman's decision whether to abort a pregnancy.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The Court reasoned that outlawing abortions would infringe a pregnant woman's right to privacy for several reasons: having unwanted children "may force upon the woman a distressful life and future"; it may bring imminent psychological harm; caring for the child may tax the mother's physical and mental health; and because there may be "distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child". At the same time, the Court rejected the notion that this right to privacy was absolute. It held instead that women's abortion right must be balanced against other government interests, such as protecting maternal health and protecting the life of the fetus. The Court held that the interests were sufficiently compelling to permit states to impose some limitations on pregnant women's right to choose to have an abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Texas's lawyers had argued that limiting abortion to situations where the mother's life was in danger was justified because life began at the moment of conception, and therefore the state's governmental interest in protecting prenatal life applied to all pregnancies regardless of their stage. The Court said that there was no indication that the Constitution's uses of the word "person" were meant to include fetuses, and it rejected Texas's argument that a fetus should be considered a "person" with a legal and constitutional right to life. The Court observed that there was still great disagreement over when an unborn fetus becomes a living being.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: To balance women's rights to privacy and state governments' interests in protecting mothers' health and prenatal life, the Court created the trimester framework. During the first trimester, when it was believed that the procedure was safer than childbirth, the Court ruled that a state government could place no restrictions on women's ability to choose to abort pregnancies other than imposing minimal medical safeguards, such as requiring abortions to be performed by licensed physicians. From the second trimester on, the Court ruled that evidence of increasing risks to the mother's health gave states a compelling interest that allowed them to enact medical regulations on abortion procedures so long as they were reasonable and "narrowly tailored" to protecting mothers' health. From the beginning of the third trimester on—the point at which a fetus became viable under the medical technology available in the early 1970s—the Court ruled that a state's interest in protecting prenatal life became so compelling that it could legally prohibit all abortions except where necessary to protect the mother's life or health.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Having completed its analysis, the Court concluded that Texas's abortion statutes were unconstitutional and struck them down.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Three justices from the majority filed concurring opinions in the case. Justice Potter Stewart wrote a concurring opinion in which he said that even though the Constitution makes no mention of the right to choose to have an abortion without interference, he thought the Court's decision was a permissible interpretation of the doctrine of substantive due process, which says that the Due Process Clause protection of liberty extends beyond simple procedures and protects certain fundamental rights. Justice William O. Douglas's concurring opinion described his view that although the Court was correct to find that the right to choose to have an abortion was a fundamental right, he thought it would have been better to derive it from the Ninth Amendmentwhich states that the fact that a right is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution shall not be construed to mean that American people do not possess itrather than through the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Chief Justice Warren Burger wrote a concurrence in which he wrote that he thought it would be permissible to allow a state to require two physicians to certify an abortion before it could be performed. His concurrence also states:I do not read the Court's holdings today as having the sweeping consequences attributed to them by the dissenting Justices; the dissenting views discount the reality that the vast majority of physicians observe the standards of their profession, and act only on the basis of carefully deliberated medical judgments relating to life and health. Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: This has been interpreted as Chief Justice Burger thinking that medical standards and judgment would restrict the number of abortions. Instead of the law restricting abortions to limited circumstances as pre-"Roe", now doctors would get to do the restricting.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: This understanding of "Roe" appears to be related to several statements in the majority opinion. Justice Blackmun's majority opinion states, "the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the state, that, in his medical judgment, the patient's pregnancy should be terminated." It also states, "For the stage, prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician." Six days prior to January 22, Justice Blackmun prepared "a transcript of what I shall say, and there should be at least some reason for the press not going all the way off the deep end." The unissued news release stated:


title: Roe v. Wade

text: ...the Court does not today hold that the Constitution compels abortion on demand. It does not today pronounce that a pregnant woman has an absolute right to abortion. It does, for the first trimester of pregnancy, cast the abortion decision and the responsibility for it upon the attending physician.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: These statements appear to indicate that the justices voting in the majority thought that patients had personal physicians. Earlier in American history it was once common for people to have individual doctors, but the nature of doctor-patient relationship had already changed prior to "Roe".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Justices Byron White and William Rehnquist dissented from the Court's decision. White's dissent, which was issued with "Roe" companion case, "Doe v. Bolton", argued that the Court had no basis for deciding between the competing values of pregnant women and unborn children.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: White also argued that abortion, "for the most part, should be left with the people and the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Rehnquist's dissent compared the majority's use of substantive due process to the Court's repudiated use of the doctrine in the 1905 case "Lochner v. New York". He elaborated on several of White's points and asserted that the Court's historical analysis was flawed.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: From this historical record, Rehnquist wrote, "There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." He concluded "the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: There was a strong response to the decision shortly after it was issued. Prominent organized groups that responded to "Roe" include National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, which became the National Abortion Rights Action League in late 1973 to reflect the Court's repeal of restrictive laws, and the National Right to Life Committee.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The legal scholar Ronald Dworkin described it as "undoubtedly the best-known case the United States Supreme Court has ever decided".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In the 1960s, there was an alliance between the population control movement and the abortion-rights movement in the United States. Abortion rights were especially supported by younger women within the population control movement. The cooperation was mostly due to feminists who wanted some of the popularity already enjoyed by the population control movement. In addition, population control advocates thought that legalizing abortion would help solve the coming population crisis that demographers had projected.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1973, Hugh Moore's Population Crisis Committee and John D. Rockefeller III's Population Council both publicly supported abortion rights following "Roe". Previously, public support for abortion rights within the population control movement instead came from less established organizations such as Zero Population Growth. An exception was Planned Parenthood-World Population, which supported repealing all laws against abortion in 1969. Together, population control and abortion rights advocates voiced the benefits of legalized abortion such as smaller welfare costs, fewer illegitimate births, and slower population growth. At the same time, the use of these arguments put them at odds with civil-rights movement leaders and Black Power activists who were concerned that abortion would be used to eliminate non-whites. H. Rap Brown denounced abortion as "black genocide", and Dick Gregory said that his "answer to genocide, quite simply, is eight Black kids and another one on the way."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Soon after "Roe", the population control movement suffered setbacks, which caused the movement to lose political support and instead appear divisive. On June 27, 1973, a lawsuit was filed concerning the Relf sisters, 14-year old Minnie Lee and her 12-year old sister Alice Lee. A worker at a federally-funded family planning clinic lied to their illiterate mother, saying they would get birth control shots. Instead, the Relf sisters were sterilized without their knowledge or consent. During the next fifteen months, 80 additional women came forward about their forced sterilizations, all belonging to minority races. Concerns rose that abortions would also become compulsory. During the 1974 World Population Conference in Bucharest, Romania, most developing nations argued that the developed nations' focus on population growth was an attempt to avoid solving the deeper causes of underdevelopment, such as the unequal structure of international relations. Instead, they wanted more favorable terms under the New International Economic Order. A draft plan with fertility targets was strongly opposed by the developing countries, which surprised the delegations from the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The final plan omitted fertility targets and instead stated, "A population policy may have a certain success if it constitutes an integral part of socio-economic development."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: As members questioned the political benefits of population control rhetoric, the abortion-rights movement distanced itself from the population control movement. In October 1973, Robin Elliott circulated a memo to other Planned Parenthood members concerning opposition to "Planned Parenthood's credibility in its reference to the population problem". Instead, she thought they should use "Roe" inspired rhetoric about "the reaffirmation of commitment to freedom of choice in parenthood." By 1978, a NARAL handbook denounced population control.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Into the 21st century, advocates of "Roe" describe it as vital to the preservation of women's rights, personal freedom, bodily integrity, and privacy. Advocates have also reasoned that access to safe abortion and reproductive freedom generally are fundamental rights. Supporters of "Roe" contend that even if abortion rights are also supported by another portion of the constitution, the decision in 1973 accurately founds the right in the Fourteenth Amendment. Others support "Roe" despite concern that the fundamental right to abortion is found elsewhere in the Constitution but not in the portions referenced in the 1973 decision. They also tend to believe that the power balance between men and women is unequal, and that issues like access to birth control and political representation affect women's equality.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Opinion polls in late 2021 indicated that while a majority of Americans oppose overturning "Roe", a sizable minority opposed overturning "Roe" but also desired to make abortion illegal in ways that "Roe" would not permit. This was attributed to poll respondents misunderstanding "Roe v. Wade" or misinterpreting the poll question. 2018–2019 polls showed that while 60 percent of Americans generally support abortion in the first trimester, this drops to 20 percent for the second trimester, even though "Roe" protects the right to abortion until the last weeks of the second trimester, and at the same time 69 percent said they would not like to see "Roe" overturned, compared to 29 percent who said they would like to see "Roe" overturned. Another poll showed that 43 percent of those who said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases opposed overturning "Roe", while 26 percent of those who said abortion should be legal in most or all cases supported overturning "Roe". Polls also found that men and women have similar views on abortion, which are linked to how people think about motherhood, sex, and women's social roles; supporters of "Roe" and abortion rights tend to see women's ability to make decisions about their bodies as fundamental to gender equality.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Most polls in the late 2010s and early 2020s showed overwhelming support, at between 85 and 90 percent, among Americans that abortion should be legal in at least some circumstances, which varies or drops depending on the specifics. A January 2022 CNN poll found a 59% majority of Americans want their state to have laws that are "more permissive than restrictive" on abortion if "Roe" is overturned, 20% want their state to ban abortion entirely, and another 20% want it to be restricted but not banned. In two March 2022 polls, between 61 and 64 percent of Americans said abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while between 35 and 37 percent said abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. A May 2022 Gallup poll showed that 50% of Americans thought abortions should be legal under certain circumstances, with 35% saying it should be legal under any circumstances, and 15% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances, as well as a record number of Americans who identify as "pro-choice".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Before "Roe" was overturned in "Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization", a majority of Americans thought that "Roe" was safe and would not be overturned. Since the draft's leaks showed "Roe" to be overturned in "Dobbs", as happened in June 2022, abortion became a concern and a very important issue for Democrats, who previously lagged behind Republicans on this; some Americans, in particular liberals but also a few conservatives, may have become more aware of the popular support for "Roe", which they had previously understated. In June 2022, Gallup reported that a 61% majority of Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, while 37% say abortion should be illegal in all or most cases. It also recorded the highest partisan divide since 1995, compared to the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s when both Democrats and Republicans were closer on the issue. That same month, the Congregation L'Dor Va-Dor filed a lawsuit against a new law in Florida that would outlaw abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, including in cases of rape or incest. Unlike other legal challenges to abortion restrictions in the United States that generally rely on the right to privacy established by "Roe", the synagogue argued that Florida's abortion law violates religious freedom, as "Jewish law says that life begins at birth, not at conception."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Some supporters of abortion rights oppose "Roe v. Wade" on the grounds that it laid a foundation for abortion in civil rights rather than in human rights, which are broader and would require government entities to take active measures to ensure every woman has access to abortion. This particular position is indicated by the use of rhetoric concerning "reproductive justice", which replaces earlier rhetoric centered around "choice", such as the "pro-choice" label. Reproductive justice proponents contend that factors permitting choice are unequal, thus perpetuating oppression and serving to divide women. Reproductive justice advocates instead want abortion to be considered an affirmative right that the government would be obligated to guarantee equal access to, even if the women seeking abortions are nonwhite, poor, or live outside major metropolitan areas. With a broader interpretation of the right to an abortion, it would be possible to require all new obstetricians to be in favor of abortion rights, lest as professionals they employ conscience clauses and refuse to perform abortions. In the 1989 decision of "Webster v. Reproductive Health Services", the Supreme Court ruled against an affirmative right to nontherapeutic abortions and noted that states would not be required to pay for them.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Some in academia have equated the denial of abortion rights to compulsory motherhood, and reason that because of this abortion bans violate the Thirteenth Amendment: "When women are compelled to carry and bear children, they are subjected to 'involuntary servitude' in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment. Even if the woman has stipulated to have consented to the risk of pregnancy, that does not permit the state to force her to remain pregnant." In 1993, a district court rejected an attempt to justify abortion rights apart from "Roe" and instead upon the basis that pregnancy and childrearing constituted involuntary servitude.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Every year, on the anniversary of the decision, opponents of abortion march up Constitution Avenue to the Supreme Court Building in Washington, D.C., in the March for Life. Around 250,000 people attended the march until 2010. Estimates put the 2011 and 2012 attendances at 400,000 each, and the 2013 March for Life drew an estimated 650,000 people.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Opponents of "Roe" say that the decision lacks a valid constitutional foundation. Like the dissenters in "Roe", they maintain that the Constitution is silent on the issue, and that proper solutions to the question would best be found via state legislatures and the legislative process, rather than through an all-encompassing ruling from the Supreme Court. Another argument against the "Roe" decision, as articulated by former president Ronald Reagan, is that, in the absence of consensus about when meaningful life begins, it is best to avoid the risk of doing harm.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In response to "Roe v. Wade", most states enacted or attempted to enact laws limiting or regulating abortion, such as laws requiring parental consent or parental notification for minors to obtain abortions; spousal mutual consent laws; spousal notification laws; laws requiring abortions to be performed in hospitals, not clinics; laws barring state funding for abortions; laws banning intact dilation and extraction, also known as partial-birth abortion; laws requiring waiting periods before abortions; and laws mandating that women read certain types of literature and watch a fetal ultrasound before undergoing an abortion. In 1976, Congress passed the Hyde Amendment, barring the federal government from using Medicaid to fund abortions except in cases of rape, incest, or a threat to the life of the mother. The Supreme Court struck down some state restrictions in a long series of cases stretching from the mid-1970s to the late 1980s, but upheld restrictions on funding, including the Hyde Amendment, in the case of "Harris v. McRae" (1980). Some opponents of abortion maintain that personhood begins at fertilization or conception, and should therefore be protected by the Constitution; the dissenting justices in "Roe" instead wrote that decisions about abortion "should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Liberal and feminist legal scholars have had various reactions to "Roe", not always giving the decision unqualified support. One argument is that Justice Blackmun reached the correct result but went about it the wrong way. Another is that the end achieved by "Roe" does not justify its means of judicial fiat.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: David Garrow said that the decision in "Roe" and also "Doe v. Bolton" "owed a great amount of their substance and language" to Justice Blackmun's law clerks, George Frampton and Randall Bezanson. He thought the extent of their contributions were remarkable, and that the clerks exhibited an "unusually assertive and forceful manner" in voicing their views to Justice Blackmun. In his research, it was the earliest significant example he found of this behavior pattern, which grew more consistent later on. In Garrow's evaluation, the clerks' contributions were "historically significant and perhaps decisive" in shaping the two decisions.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In response to Garrow, Edward Lazarus said that Justice Blackmun's later clerks like himself did not need as much direction on reproductive rights since they had Justice Blackmun's prior opinions to draw from. Lazarus thought that on at least some occasions when legal formulations were created for opinions to be published in Justice Blackmun's name, the justice himself was not engaged in originating every significant thought pattern that they employed. Lazarus agreed that Garrow's depiction of how the trimester framework came about was an example of one of these occasions. He concluded: "The problem of excessive clerk delegation was less serious in Blackmun's chambers than Garrow suggests but is also more commonplace among the justices. The modern Supreme Court has deep problems in its decisional culture and the overuse of law clerks is an aspect of this."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Justice John Paul Stevens, while agreeing with the decision, suggested that it should have been more narrowly focused on the issue of privacy. According to Stevens, if the decision had avoided the trimester framework and simply stated that the right to privacy included a right to choose abortion, "it might have been much more acceptable" from a legal standpoint. Before joining the Court, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg criticized the decision for venturing "too far in the change it ordered". Had the decision been limited in scope to only permit abortion during certain circumstances, "physicians might have been less pleased with the decision, but the legislative trend might have continued in the direction in which it was headed". After becoming a Supreme Court justice, Ginsburg faulted the Court's approach for being "about a doctor's freedom to practice his profession as he thinks best... It wasn't woman-centered. It was physician-centered." Justice Ginsburg thought that "Roe" was originally intended to complement Medicaid funding for abortions, but this did not happen. About "Harris v. McRae", which upheld restrictions on Medicaid abortion funding, she said:


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. Frankly I had thought that at the time "Roe" was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of. So that "Roe" was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn't really want them. But when the court decided "McRae", the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox thought the "failure to confront the issue in principled terms leaves the opinion to read like a set of hospital rules and regulations whose validity is good enough this week but will be destroyed with new statistics upon the medical risks of child birth and abortion or new advances in providing for the separate existence of a fetus. Neither historian, nor layman, nor lawyer will be persuaded that all the prescriptions of Justice Blackmun are part of the Constitution."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In a highly cited "Yale Law Journal" article published in the months after the decision, the American legal scholar John Hart Ely criticized "Roe" as a decision that was disconnected from American constitutional law.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: American constitutional law scholar Laurence Tribe said: "One of the most curious things about "Roe" is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found." Centrist-liberal law professors Alan Dershowitz, Cass Sunstein, and Kermit Roosevelt III have also expressed disappointment with "Roe v. Wade".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Jeffrey Rosen, as well as Michael Kinsley, echo Ginsburg, arguing that a legislative movement would have been the correct way to build a more durable consensus in support of abortion rights. William Saletan wrote, "Blackmun's papers vindicate every indictment of "Roe": invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference." Benjamin Wittes argued that "Roe" "disenfranchised millions of conservatives on an issue about which they care deeply." Edward Lazarus, a former Blackmun clerk who "loved "Roe"s author like a grandfather", wrote: "As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, "Roe" borders on the indefensible... Justice Blackmun's opinion provides essentially no reasoning in support of its holding. And in the almost 30 years since "Roe" announcement, no one has produced a convincing defense of "Roe" on its own terms."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Richard Epstein thought that the majority opinion relied on a book written by William Lloyd Prosser about tort law when it stated that it "is said" recovery of damages was allowed "only if the fetus was viable, or at least quick, when the injuries were sustained". He compared this to what was in fact written in the book, which was that "when actually faced with the issue for decision, almost all of the jurisdictions have allowed recovery even though the injury occurred during the early weeks of pregnancy, when the child was neither viable nor quick."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Pro-life advocate Matt Bruenig, lawyer and founder of the People's Policy Project, criticized "Roe" as being "weaker than normal" and observed that similarly broad interpretations of the Constitution could be used to argue the opposite outcome, saying "right now we have a constitutional right to an abortion—you could also constitutionally ban abortion. If you wanted to, someone could bring a case, file it in a district court, hit the appeal button twice, and then if you get five judges together, the opinion would be the easiest thing in the world to write. You would say, 'the Fourteenth Amendment protects the right to life, liberty, and property without due process and all that shit. So we're looking at that, and we think that abortion takes a life and so we think that in fact states may not permit abortion'. So you could constitutionally ban it and say that no state or federal government is allowed to legalize abortion".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The assertion that the Supreme Court was making a legislative decision is often repeated by opponents of the ruling. The "viability" criterion was still in effect, although the point of viability changed as medical science found ways to help premature babies survive.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Justice Blackmun, who authored the "Roe" decision, subsequently had mixed feelings about his role in the case. During a 1974 television interview, he stated that "Roe" "will be regarded as one of the worst mistakes in the court's history or one of its great decisions, a turning point."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In a 1983 interview for a newspaper journalist, he responded that he was "mildly annoyed at those, law professors included, who personalize it" because "it was a decision of the court, not my decision. There were seven votes." As a Methodist, he felt hurt that Methodist pastors wrote condemning letters to him, but as time passed, the letters did not hurt "as much anymore". In defense he responded, "People misunderstand. I am not for abortion. I hope my family never has to face such a decision", noting that "I still think it was a correct decision" because "we were deciding a constitutional issue, not a moral one." He described "Roe" as "a no-win case" and predicted that, "fifty years from now, depending on the fate of the proposed constitutional amendment, abortion probably will not be as great a legal issue. I think it will continue to be a moral issue, however."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: He reflected that his role in the decision meant he was most known as the "author of the abortion decision". His response was that "we all pick up tags. I'll carry this one to my grave" and "so be it".


title: Roe v. Wade

text: I remember that the old Chief appointed a screening committee, chaired by Potter, to select those cases that could (it was assumed) be adequately heard by a Court of seven. I was on that little committee. We did not do a good job. Potter pressed for "Roe v. Wade" and "Doe v. Bolton" to be heard and did so in the misapprehension that they involved nothing more than an application of "Younger v. Harris". How wrong we were.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1991, he regretted how the Court decided to hear "Roe" and "Doe" in a televised interview: "It was a serious mistake... We did a poor job. I think the committee should have deferred them until we had a full Court."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1992, he stood by the analytical framework he established in "Roe" during the subsequent "Casey" case. He often gave speeches and lectures promoting "Roe v. Wade" and criticizing "Roe"s critics.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Norma McCorvey would later claim that, during the 1970s although some years after "Roe", she had a nightmare concerning "little babies lying around with daggers in their hearts". This was the first of a series of recurring nightmares which kept her awake at night. She became worried and wondered, "What really, had I done?" and "Well, how do they kill a baby inside a mother's stomach anyway?" McCorvey later reflected:


title: Roe v. Wade

text: I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. I realize it sounds very naïve, especially for a woman who had already conceived and delivered three children. Though I had seen and experienced more than my share of the world, there were some things about which I still didn't have a clue—and this was one of them. Ironically enough, Jane Roe may have known less about abortion than anyone else.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: During the years after "Roe", although not immediately, McCorvey joined with and accompanied others in the abortion rights movement. During this time, McCorvey stated that she had publicly lied about being raped and apologized for making the false rape claim. Norma McCorvey became part of the movement against abortion from 1995 until shortly before her death in 2017. In 1998, she testified to Congress:


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 2002, along with Sandra Cano (Mary Doe) from "Doe v. Bolton" and Bernard Nathanson, a co-founder of NARAL Pro-Choice America, McCorvey appeared in a television advertisement intended to get the Bush administration to nominate members to the Supreme Court who would oppose abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: As a party to the original litigation, she sought to reopen the case in U.S. District Court in Texas to have "Roe v. Wade" overturned. However, the Fifth Circuit decided that her case was moot, in "McCorvey v. Hill". In a concurring opinion, Judge Edith Jones agreed that McCorvey was raising legitimate questions about emotional and other harm suffered by women who have had abortions, about increased resources available for the care of unwanted children, and about new scientific understanding of fetal development. However, Jones said she was compelled to agree that the case was moot. On February 22, 2005, the Supreme Court refused to grant a writ of certiorari, and McCorvey's appeal ended.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In an interview shortly before her death, McCorvey stated that she had taken an anti-abortion position because she had been paid to do so and that her campaign against abortion had been an act. She also stated that it did not matter to her if women wanted to have an abortion and they should be free to choose. Rob Schenck, a Methodist pastor and activist who once had anti-abortion views stated that he and others helped entice McCorvey to claim she changed sides and also stated that what they had done with her was "highly unethical" and he had "profound regret" over the matter.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Frank Pavone, a priest with whom McCorvey talked to after the interview, reflected after her death that "There was no indication whatsoever, at the end of her life" that she had given up her pro-life positions. Pavone stated that following the interview, McCorvey talked positively with him about a message she wanted him to convey at the next March for Life. The message concerned encouraging young people to oppose abortion.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: After arguing in "Roe v. Wade" at the age of 26, Sarah Weddington was elected to the Texas House of Representatives for three terms. Weddington also was general counsel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, an assistant to President Jimmy Carter, lecturer at the Texas Wesleyan University School of Law, and speaker and adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In a 1993 speech for the Institute for Educational Ethics in Oklahoma, Weddington discussed her conduct during "Roe" and stated, "My conduct may not have been totally ethical. But I did it for what I thought were good reasons."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1998, she said that the lack of doctors to abort fetuses could undermine "Roe": "When I look back on the decision, I thought these words had been written in granite. But I've learned it was not granite. It was more like sandstone. The immediate problem is, where will the doctors come from?" Weddington died on December 26, 2021.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: "Roe" is embedded in a long line of cases concerning personal liberty in the realm of privacy, since "Roe" was based on individual liberty cases concerning privacy like "Meyer v. Nebraska" (1923), "Griswold v. Connecticut" (1965), "Loving v. Virginia" (1967) and "Eisenstadt v. Baird" (1972) and became a foundation for individual liberty cases concerning privacy like "Lawrence v. Texas" (2003) and "Obergefell v. Hodges" (2015).


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Two months after the decision in "Roe", the Court issued a ruling about school funding in "San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez". The majority opinion cited "Roe v. Wade" to assert that privacy itself was a fundamental right, while procreation implicitly counted as "among the rights of personal privacy protected under the Constitution." In his dissenting opinion, Justice Thurgood Marshall stated that "Roe v. Wade" "reaffirmed its initial decision in "Buck v. Bell"", and noted where "Buck" was cited in "Roe". He found "Roe" to be a continuation of the Court's practice of granting only a limited stature to the right to procreate, since the Court's decision treated procreation as less important than the right to privacy. He observed that although past decisions showed strong concern against the state discriminating against certain groups concerning procreation and certain other rights, the "Court has never said or indicated that these are interests which independently enjoy full-blown constitutional protection." Instead, in "Roe", "the importance of procreation has indeed been explained on the basis of its intimate relationship with the constitutional right of privacy..." Justice Marshall thought that the method used in "Rodriguez" for determining which rights were more fundamental was wrong, and proposed a different method which would result in procreation receiving greater legal protection.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The legal interaction between "Roe v Wade", the Fourteenth Amendment as understood post-"Roe", and changing medical technology and standards caused the development of civil suits for wrongful birth and wrongful life claims. Not all states permit a parent to sue for wrongful birth or a child to sue for wrongful life. The constitutionality of wrongful life claims is controversial within the legal profession, even for states which currently allow them. Pre-"Roe", a state court dismissed a lawsuit making both a wrongful birth and life claim, which was unsuccessfully appealed to the Supreme Court of New Jersey.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Prior to "Roe", the Chancery Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey found that a pregnant Jehovah's Witness woman could be ordered to submit to lifesaving blood transfusions due to the state's compelling interest "to save her life and the life of her unborn child." The Court appointed a legal guardian to represent the unborn child, and ordered the guardian to consent to blood transfusions and to "seek such other relief as may be necessary to preserve the lives of the mother and the child". After "Roe", the Fifth District Appellate Court in Illinois ruled that medical professionals had wrongly transfused blood into a pregnant Jehovah's Witness woman on the basis from "Roe" that the "state's important and legitimate interest becomes compelling at viability" and her fetus was not yet viable.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: President Reagan, who supported legislative restrictions on abortion, began making federal judicial appointments in 1981. Reagan denied that there was any litmus test: "I have never given a litmus test to anyone that I have appointed to the bench... . I feel very strongly about those social issues, but I also place my confidence in the fact that the one thing that I do seek are judges that will interpret the law and not write the law. We've had too many examples in recent years of courts and judges legislating."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In addition to Justices White and Rehnquist, Reagan-appointee Justice Sandra Day O'Connor began dissenting from the Court's abortion cases, arguing in 1983 that the trimester-based analysis devised by the "Roe" Court was "unworkable." Shortly before his retirement, Chief Justice Warren Burger suggested in 1986 that "Roe" be "reexamined"; the associate justice who filled Burger's place on the Court—Justice Antonin Scalia—vigorously opposed "Roe". Concern about overturning "Roe" played a major role in the defeat of Robert Bork's nomination to the Court in 1987; the man eventually appointed to replace "Roe"-supporter Justice Lewis Powell was Justice Anthony Kennedy.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: The justices voting in the majority on the Federal Constitutional Court in pre-unification West Germany rejected the trimester framework in the "German Constitutional Court abortion decision, 1975" on the basis that development during pregnancy is a continuous whole rather than made up of three trimesters. The Court found that the right to life extends also to the unborn and that life begins on the fourteenth day after conception. It also found that the liberties of pregnant mothers were qualified by the existence of another life inside them. The Court found that "A compromise which guarantees the protection of the life of the one about to be born and permits the pregnant woman the freedom of abortion is not possible since the interruption of pregnancy always means the destruction of the unborn life." It ruled that the fetus must be protected, and the first responsibility for this lies with the mother, with a second responsibility in the hands of the legislature. The Court allowed for a balancing of rights between the mother and unborn child, but required that the rights of each be considered within a framework which acknowledged the supreme, fundamental value of human life. Legislation allowing abortion could be constitutional if the rights of the unborn persons were acknowledged in this manner.


title: Roe v. Wade

text: Two minority justices in the ruling for the German Constitutional Court abortion decision in 1975 remarked that "the Supreme Court of the United States has even regarded punishment for the interruption of pregnancy, performed by a physician with the consent of the pregnant woman in the first third of pregnancy, as a violation of fundamental rights. This would, according to German constitutional law, go too far indeed."


title: Roe v. Wade

text: In 1988, the Supreme Court of Canada used the rulings in both "Roe" and "Doe v. Bolton" as grounds to find Canada's federal law limiting abortions to certified hospitals unconstitutional in "R. v. Morgentaler".