Roe V. Wade Case Study

Abortion was a rising issue in America in the nineteen sixties and seventies; women’s rights and public health problems were on the rise with abortion laws front and center (“Roe v

Wade: Key US Abortion Ruling” 3). In 1969 polls were reflecting that more women favored changes in the state abortion laws, so it would be easier to have a legal abortion. The case of

Roe versus Wade took place in nineteen seventies Dallas, Texas where the abortion laws had strict laws preventing any kind of abortion; one could be sentenced from two to five years in prison and fined up to one-thousand dollars if found violating Texas abortion laws. The only exception to Texas abortion laws were abortions provided by a medical doctor if the mother’s life was in harm’s way (Herda 26).

In order to peruse the case, she asked her lawyers to keep her identity a secret so her and her lawyers came up with the name “Jane Roe” to protect McCorvey’s identity (Herda 23).

And so begins the case of Roe v. Wade. McCorvey’s lawyers decided not to bring up the rape during the case, as the circumstances of the pregnancy were not the main question (Herda 20).

Her attorneys argued that a woman is guaranteed the right to an abortion by her constitutional right to privacy because no state has the right to interfere with a women’s decision to have an abortion, which is a private matter (Herda 31). McCorvey’s attorney’s argued Texas abortion laws interfered with a women’s First Amendment rights to associate with her physician (Herda

31-32). They also argued that Texas laws prohibiting abortions would be difficult due to the

Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure (Herda 32). The

Eighth Amendment supported their argument that denoting a woman to an abortion was a form of a cruel and unusual punishment (Herda 32). Coffee and Weddington,