Summary
The United States Supreme Court reviewed constitutional challenges to Texas criminal abortion statutes. The Court held that the constitutional right of privacy encompassed a qualified right to choose an abortion, invalidated the statutes as overly restrictive, and established a trimester framework governing state regulation. The Court also addressed standing and justiciability, dismissing the physician's intervention and affirming dismissal of the Does' complaint.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Roe's challenge remained justiciable after her pregnancy ended.
- Whether Dr. Hallford could obtain federal declaratory or injunctive relief while defending pending state criminal prosecutions under the challenged statutes.
- Whether the Does had standing to challenge the Texas abortion statutes based on a speculative possibility of future pregnancy.
- Whether the Fourteenth Amendment protects a woman's decision to terminate her pregnancy.
- Whether Texas's criminal abortion statutes, which permitted abortion only when necessary to save the mother's life, violated the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the fetus is a person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.
- Whether the Court had jurisdiction to review the declaratory and injunctive aspects of the district court's judgment under 28 U.S.C. § 1253.
Holdings
- Roe's claim was not moot because pregnancy is a condition capable of repetition yet evading review.
- Hallford was not entitled to federal declaratory or injunctive relief concerning the statutes under which he was being prosecuted in state court, absent harassment or bad faith.
- The Does lacked standing because their alleged injury depended on multiple speculative future events, including contraceptive failure, pregnancy, and a future desire for an abortion.
- The Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty protects a woman's decision whether to terminate her pregnancy, although the right is not absolute.
- A state abortion statute that permits abortion only when necessary to save the mother's life, without regard to the stage of pregnancy or other recognized interests, violates the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause.
- The word "person" in the Fourteenth Amendment does not include the unborn.
Key quotations
“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” (410 U.S. at 153)
“We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.” (410 U.S. at 154)
“For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending physician.” (410 U.S. at 163-64)
“For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother.” (410 U.S. at 164)
“In all other respects, the judgment of the District Court is affirmed.” (410 U.S. at 167)
Factual background
Jane Roe was an unmarried pregnant woman residing in Dallas County who wished to obtain an abortion from a competent, licensed physician but could not obtain a legal abortion in Texas because her life was not threatened and could not afford to travel elsewhere. Texas Penal Code Articles 1191-1194 and 1196 criminalized abortion except when performed on medical advice to save the mother's life. Dr. Hallford, a licensed physician, had pending state criminal prosecutions under the same statutes and sought federal declaratory and injunctive relief. The Does were a married, childless couple who were not pregnant but feared a possible future pregnancy and desired the option of abortion if that occurred.
Procedural history
Roe brought a federal action challenging the Texas criminal abortion statutes on their face and seeking declaratory and injunctive relief. A three-judge district court held that Roe and Dr. Hallford had standing, that the Does lacked standing, declared the Texas abortion statutes void, denied injunctive relief, and dismissed the Does' complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed the judgment in all respects except as to Hallford, whose intervention was dismissed because he was defending simultaneous state criminal prosecutions under the challenged statutes.