Hist 1302 Essay

One of the most historical rulings in the movement of women’s rights was the ruling in the Roe vs. Wade Supreme Court case in 1973. In the case Jane Roe, who took on this name to hide her identity was a pregnant high school student who wanted to get an abortion done in the state of Texas, where abortions were banned. Roe did not have to the money to travel outside of state to have the procedure done, and filed a lawsuit stating that the antiabortion law violated her rights. According to America Moves To The Rights, 1969-1989, “She claimed that the Texas statues were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments”(pg. 307). This court case made a historical significance because in the right of privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment did extend the women’s right to abortion. It left the stipulations of having an abortion up to the individual states legislature.

Having an abortion is a medical procedure and not only is the fetus at risk, the mother is a too. They were plenty of reasons why abortions were banned in the U.S. such as to discourage acts of illicit sexual conduct and to protect pregnant woman from potentially putting their life in jeopardy. If the pregnancy wasn’t in danger of the mother or if the conception didn’t come from a rape then it was outlawed. The state’s defense was in protecting the prenatal life, as long as there was another potential life then the state’s interest went beyond the pregnant woman’s rights. The state of Texas did not agree that the woman could just terminate her pregnancy when she wanted to for whatever reason she wanted to.

Since the Constitution did not include the unborn in its definition so what had to be determined now was viability. The question was when does the unborn become an actually human being and can survive outside of the womb? America Moves to the Right states, “Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth...