Roe et al. v. Wade, District Attorney of Dallas County (410 U.S. 113)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided January 22, 1973 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 410 U.S. 113 · 93 S. Ct. 705
- Docket
- No. 70-18
- Argued
- December 13, 1971; reargued October 11, 1972
- Decided
- January 22, 1973
- Term
- October Term 1972
- Vote
- 7–2
- Majority author
- Justice Blackmun
- Issue area
- Privacy
- Disposition
- Reversed
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Liberal
- Constitutional ruling
- State/territorial law held unconstitutional
- Later history
- Overruled by Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022)
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Burger (wrote a concurrence), Justice Douglas (wrote a concurrence), Justice Stewart (wrote a concurrence), Justice Marshall, Justice Brennan, Justice Blackmun (wrote), Justice Powell
- Dissenting
- Chief Justice Rehnquist (wrote), Justice White (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court. This Texas federal appeal and its Georgia companion, Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179, present constitutional challenges to state criminal abortion legislation. The Texas statutes under attack here are typical of those that have been in effect in many States for approximately a century. The Georgia statutes, in contrast, have a modern cast and are a legislative product that, to an extent at least, obviously reflects the influences of recent attitudinal change, of advancing medical knowledge and techniques, and of new thinking about an old issue. We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One’s philosophy, one’s experiences, one’s exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one’s religious training, one’s attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one’s thinking and conclusions about abortion. In addition, population growth, pollution, poverty, and racial overtones tend to complicate and not to simplify the problem. Our task, of course, is to resolve the issue by constitutional measurement, free of emotion and of…
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