The
Roe v. Wade Decision:
The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that (1) states have legitimate interests in seeing
to it that abortions are performed under circumstances that insure maximum
safety for the patient, (2) the right of privacy encompasses a woman's decision
whether or not to terminate her pregnancy, (3) a woman's right to terminate her
pregnancy is not absolute, and may to some extent be limited by the state's
legitimate interests in maintaining proper medical standards, and in protecting
potential human life, (4) the unborn are not included within the definition of
"person as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, (5) prior to the end of the first
trimester of pregnancy, the state may not interfere with or regulate an
attending physician's decision, reached in consultation with his patient, that
the patient's pregnancy should be terminated, (6) from and after the end of the
first trimester and until the point in time when the fetus becomes viable, the
state may regulate the abortion procedure only to the extent that such
regulation relates to the preservation and protection of maternal health, (7)
from and after the point in time when the fetus becomes viable, the state may
prohibit abortions altogether, except those necessary to preserve the life or
health of the mother, and (8) the state may proscribe the performance of all
abortions except those performed by physicians currently licensed by the state.
You have now completed the
Roe v. Wade analysis using the Project LEGAL method.If you wish
to investigate this case in further detail, CompuLEGAL has created
Follow Up Questions
that identify some of the issues it raises. You may also want to read the entire
Roe v. Wade decision.
If you are done with this case and wish to examine a new case, you should
return to the CompuLEGAL Database.
You may also return to the Project LEGAL Homepage to find a
list of legal links, to use Public Policy Analyst, or if you are enrolled in one
of Project LEGAL's programs, to Ask-A-Legal-Eagle your legal question!