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<case id="50606" source="Oyez API" schema="simple-legal-case-xml-v1"><name>Roe v. Wade</name><docketNumber>70-18</docketNumber><term>1971</term><court><name>Burger Court (1971-1972)</name><identifier>burger3</identifier><href>https://api.oyez.org/courts/burger3</href></court><parties><firstParty role="Appellant">Jane Roe</firstParty><secondParty role="Appellee">Henry Wade</secondParty></parties><dates><date type="argued">1971-12-13</date><date type="reargued">1972-10-11</date><date type="decided">1973-01-22</date></dates><citation><volume>410</volume><page>113</page><year>1973</year><href>https://api.oyez.org/case_citation/case_citation/14534</href><justia_url>https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/</justia_url></citation><jurisdiction>Appeal</jurisdiction><facts><html><p>In 1970, Jane Roe (a fictional name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.</p>
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</html><text>In 1970, Jane Roe (a fictional name used in court documents to protect the plaintiff’s identity) filed a lawsuit against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, where she resided, challenging a Texas law making abortion illegal except by a doctor’s orders to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.</text></facts><questions /><conclusion><html><p>Inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s choice whether to have an abortion. However, this right is balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women's health and protecting “the potentiality of human life.” The Texas law challenged in this case violated this right.</p>
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<p>Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority of the Court.</p>
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<p>First, the Court considered whether the case was moot, concluding that it was not. When the subject of litigation is “capable of repetition yet evading review,” a case need not be dismissed as moot. Pregnancy is a “classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness.”</p>
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<p>The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy. A state law that broadly prohibits abortion without respect to the stage of pregnancy or other interests violates that right. Although the state has legitimate interests in protecting the health of pregnant women and the “potentiality of human life,” the relative weight of each of these interests varies over the course of pregnancy, and the law must account for this variability.</p>
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<p>In the first trimester of pregnancy, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of “viability,” a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.</p>
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</html><text>Inherent in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment is a fundamental “right to privacy” that protects a pregnant woman’s choice whether to have an abortion. However, this right is balanced against the government’s interests in protecting women's health and protecting “the potentiality of human life.” The Texas law challenged in this case violated this right.
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Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the opinion for the 7-2 majority of the Court.
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First, the Court considered whether the case was moot, concluding that it was not. When the subject of litigation is “capable of repetition yet evading review,” a case need not be dismissed as moot. Pregnancy is a “classic justification for a conclusion of nonmootness.”
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The Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment protects against state action the right to privacy, and a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion falls within that right to privacy. A state law that broadly prohibits abortion without respect to the stage of pregnancy or other interests violates that right. Although the state has legitimate interests in protecting the health of pregnant women and the “potentiality of human life,” the relative weight of each of these interests varies over the course of pregnancy, and the law must account for this variability.
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In the first trimester of pregnancy, the state may not regulate the abortion decision; only the pregnant woman and her attending physician can make that decision. In the second trimester, the state may impose regulations on abortion that are reasonably related to maternal health. In the third trimester, once the fetus reaches the point of “viability,” a state may regulate abortions or prohibit them entirely, so long as the laws contain exceptions for cases when abortion is necessary to save the life or health of the mother.</text></conclusion><advocates><advocate for="Argued the cause for the appellants"><name>Sarah R. Weddington</name><href>https://api.oyez.org/people/sarah_r_weddington</href></advocate><advocate for="Argued the cause for the appellee"><name>Jay Floyd</name><href>https://api.oyez.org/people/jay_floyd</href></advocate><advocate for="Re-argued the cause for the appellee"><name>Robert C. Flowers</name><href>https://api.oyez.org/people/robert_c_flowers</href></advocate></advocates><decisions><decision type="majority opinion" winning_party="Jane Roe"><description /><votes majority="7" minority="2"><vote opinion_type="concurrence" vote="majority" seniority="2"><justice>William O. Douglas</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/william_o_douglas</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="concurrence" vote="majority" seniority="4"><justice>Potter Stewart</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/potter_stewart</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="none" vote="majority" seniority="6"><justice>Thurgood Marshall</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/thurgood_marshall</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="none" vote="majority" seniority="3"><justice>William J. Brennan, Jr.</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/william_j_brennan_jr</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="dissent" vote="minority" seniority="5"><justice>Byron R. White</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/byron_r_white</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="concurrence" vote="majority" seniority="1"><justice>Warren E. Burger</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/warren_e_burger</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="majority" vote="majority" seniority="7"><justice>Harry A. Blackmun</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/harry_a_blackmun</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="none" vote="majority" seniority="8"><justice>Lewis F. Powell, Jr.</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/lewis_f_powell_jr</justice_href></vote><vote opinion_type="dissent" vote="minority" seniority="9"><justice>William H. Rehnquist</justice><justice_href>https://api.oyez.org/people/william_h_rehnquist</justice_href></vote></votes></decision></decisions><source><href>https://api.oyez.org/cases/1971/70-18</href><raw_file>D:\PyCharm Community Edition 2024.3.1.1\PythonProject\IBM Z Datathon\json_data\api.oyez.org_cases_1971_70-18.json</raw_file></source></case> |
