Even an abortion rights champion like Ruth Bader Ginsburg has criticisms of the Roe v. Wade decision.
On January 22, 1973 — 42 years ago today — the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade, wherein a Texas woman sought an abortion, but existing legislation in Texas prevented her from doing so. The Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that it was unconstitutional for states to interfere in the process of a physician providing a first-trimester abortion. Before the ruling, it was illegal for physicians to perform an abortion in 30 states. In the remaining 20 states, it was illegal for physicians to perform abortion unless it was deemed medically necessary.
Women, their autonomy, and their right to decide their future were not given as reasons why Roe v. Wade was decided the way that it was. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote for the Supreme Court, stating that the case was a right to privacy issue that was protected under the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment. Before his death in 1999, Justice Blackmun stated outright that Roe v. Wade was not about women’s rights. Ronald Rotunda, law professor at Chapman University, recalls a 1994 conversation with Justice Blackmun where he explicitly spelled out the ruling’s intentions: “Roe ‘protected the woman’s right, with the physician, to get an abortion.’” Rotunda made clear that “Blackmun emphasized the italicized phrase with his voice. He spoke of the case as a doctor’s rights case, not a woman’s right case.”
Some reproductive rights supporters think Roe v. Wade faltered in not explicitly prioritizing women’s rights to control their own bodies.
Each January, reproductive justice advocates celebrate the Roe v. Wade decision because it is absolutely essential that a woman is able to obtain an abortion if that is what she decides — because she, and she alone, should decide her future and fate. However, as interpreted by the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade was never about women’s rights. Numerous legal scholars in favor of reproductive rights have taken issue with how Roe v. Wade was handled. Their criticisms are largely that: (1) the Supreme Court went beyond its role of judicial power and into that of legislative power by making abortion legal in all 50 states, and (2) the Supreme Court failed to make the decision about a woman’s right to choose her own future. Below is only a brief cross-section of these criticisms. Continue reading
