Abortion :: essays research papers fc

In Roe et al. v. Wade District Attorney of Dallas County (1973), one of the most controversial cases in new-fangled history, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state laws that limit a womans right to an abortion during the first three months of pregnancy. Justices Rehnquist and White dissented.Mr. Justice Blackmun delivered the vista of the Court....This Texas national appeal and its Georgia companion, Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, present constitutional challenges to state criminal abortion legislation. The Texas statutes under attack here are typical of those that assimilate been in effect in many States for approximately a century. The Georgia statutes, in contrast, have a modern cast and are a legislative product that, to an extent at least, obviously reflects the influences of recent attitudinal change, of advancing medical knowledge and techniques, and of new thinking about an old issue.We forthwith acknowledge our sentiency of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigourous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. Ones philosophy, ones experiences, ones exposure to the raw edges of human existence, ones religious training, ones attitudes toward disembodied spirit and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color ones thinking and conclusions about abortion....The Texas statutes that concern us here are Arts. 1191-1194 and 1196 of the States Penal Code. These work it a crime to "procure an abortion," as therein defined, or to attempt one, except with respect to "an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the nominate of saving the life of the mother." Similar statutes are in existence in a majority of the States.Texas first enacted a criminal abortion statute in 1854. Texas Laws 1854, c. 49, Sec. 1, set forth in 3 H. Gammel, La ws of Texas 1502 (1898). This was soon modified into language that has remained substantially unchanged to the present time....Jane Roe, a single woman who was residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted this federal action in March 1970 against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face, and an injunction restraining the suspect from enforcing the statutes.Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant that she wished to terminate her pregnancy