Abortion: Supreme Court Case Study

Carrington James
Mr. Raboy
U.S. Government and History
December 7th, 2015

An abortion is the termination of a pregnancy after, accompanied by, resulting in, or closely followed by the death of the embryo or fetus. In Roe V. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, The Supreme Court addressed the issue of abortion by recognizing the right to privacy through the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments and creating a new, less strict interpretation of the “undue burden” standard of review. In the 1970’s, a pregnant woman named Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) pursued a case against the Dallas County, Texas District Attorney. She challenged a Texas law that made it a crime to get an abortion. An exception of

Wade had an impact on other Supreme Court cases. Almost 20 years after the Roe V. Wade decision, the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case came along. In that case, the Supreme Court ruled that it was a woman’s constitutional right to undergo an abortion procedure. After the Court’s ruling, states felt the need to try to place limits on the procedure, and some even thought that the Roe case decision should be completely overturned. In 1988 and 1989, Pennsylvania eventually made some changes to its abortion law. Some new changes included that a woman must consent prior to the procedure, a doctor had to imform the woman about the abortion procedures 24 hours before the procedure. That change inevitably created a mandatory 24-hor waiting period. Women under the age of 18’s parents had to grant consent or a judge would have to sign off on the procedure. It also made for married women to notify their husbands about the abortion procedure and sign a statement saying that she had done it. It was mandatory for abortion providers to report and keep records of these things. Many clinics and doctors challenged it and said that they were unconstitutional. A district court eventually reversed all the new provisions. The case eventually ended up going back into court and the court enforced all of the district court’s current decisions, except the spousal notification

The ability of women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the Nation has been facilitated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. The Constitution serves human values, and while the effect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, neither can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people who have ordered their thinking and living around that case be dismissed.” This shows that women have been looked at differently in society because of their reproductive roles. The Court ruled that women notifying their husbands placed an “undue burden” on them or choosing to have an abortion, it was unconstitutional because the law violated a woman’s right to due process. The “undue burden” was a way for the courts to effectively test the constitutionality of abortion restrictions. In Roe V. Wade, the Court had ruled that the state could not mandate abortion procedures happening in the first trimester of pregnancy. The Casey decision overturned that part of the Roe V. Wade decision. Roe v. Wade brought the controversial issue of abortion to the forefront,