Abortion Issues: History of Abortion

With its controversial decision in Roe v. Wade (1973), the Supreme Court declared that women had the right to have an abortion, which it later interpreted to prohibit laws that unduly burdened a woman’s ability to choose an abortion until the third trimester of pregnancy.

The Supreme Court ruled that a fetus is not a “person” under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments and that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy before the fetus acquires viability. The justices based the decision on the penumbras of the Bill of Rights and on the substantive liberty interests protected by the Due Process Clause.

For about a decade prior to the Supreme Court ruling in Roe v Wade, abortion laws had been changing in the United States. Whereas prior to that time the only legal abortions were to save the life of the mother, states were beginning to consider other reasons. During the 1960s, twelve states had loosened regulations on abortions, with four others putting virtually no restrictions on early term abortions in 1970.

A great starting point with over 3000 articles and images relating to the topic of abortion.

See the latest Pew Research Center reports and data on views toward abortion in the United States and around the world.