• Roe v. Wade was decided on January 22, 1973, granting physicians the power to determine with a patient whether the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated.
• This decision was rooted in a public health crisis, as states had begun to criminalize abortion in the 1870s, leading to an estimated 200,000-1.2 million illegal abortions a year.
• The rising women’s movement wanted women to have control over their lives, and the evangelical Southern Baptist Convention agreed that abortion should be legal in some cases.
• In 1972, Gallup pollsters reported that 64% of Americans agreed that abortion should be between a woman and her doctor.
• In 1973, the Supreme Court, under Republican Chief Justice Warren Burger, in a decision written by Republican Harry Blackmun, decided Roe v. Wade, legalizing first-trimester abortion.
• Opposition to the eventual Roe v. Wade decision began in 1972, and was a deliberate attempt to polarize American politics.
• Today, about 62% of Americans support the guidelines laid down in Roe v. Wade, about the same percentage that supported it fifty years ago.
Published January 22, 2023
Visit Letters from an American to read Heather Cox Richardson’s original post January 21, 2023
