Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey brain Stuff Lauren vogebam here. The United States Supreme Court recently overturned its N three decision in Roe v. Wade, thus ending national rights to access some types of abortions. This news has kicked off protests and calls to codify abortion access in law across the country. Today, let's look at the case of Roe v. Wade, what it decided
and how it was overturned. Jane Rowe was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, a pregnant single woman in Texas who was unable to get an abortion because state law barred abortion in most instances except when a woman's life was at risk. McCorvey's life was not in danger, but she also couldn't afford to travel outside of Texas to have an abortion. She claimed that the Texas law violated her constitutional right to privacy. The Wade in the case refers
to Henry Wade, a Dallas County District attorney. Rowe, who remained anonymous throughout the lawsuit was joined by a Texas physician who argued that the laws were too vague for care providers to follow. Previously, he had been arrested for violating the laws. The lawsuit argued that Rowe had a
right to obtain an abortion. A federal court in Texas agreed with her, ruling that the Texas ban was unconstitutional, but once the case reached the Supreme Court, the issues involved seemed so complex that the court actually had both sides present arguments twice, in December of nineteen seventy one and again in October of nineteen seventy two. The Court reviewed the case for two full years, weighing biological, ethical,
and religious arguments in addition to constitutional issues. Ultimately, the justices ruled seven to two in favor of Row. All the justice as were men. The first woman wouldn't be appointed to the Supreme Court until Sandra Day O'Connor began
serving almost a decade later. In four Roe v. Wade, Justice Harry Blackman wrote the majority opinion, which argued that five of the constitutional amendments combined to create a zone of privacy around certain personal decisions like marriage and contraception, and that banning all abortions violated that right to make a personal and private decision about whether or not to
have a child. Those amendments that he referenced were the First Amendment, which guarantees personal freedoms, the fourth, which protects citizens from unreasonable surge and seizure, the fifth, which guarantees due process of the law before any citizen may be deprived of life or liberty, the ninth, which specifically doesn't limit a person's rights to what's in the Constitution, and the fourteenth, which prevents individual states from infringing on American
citizens rights to due process and their stuff like equal protection under the law. However, Blackman also wrote that the right to privacy had to be balanced with the government's interest in protecting potential human life, and to strike that balance, the Court decided that it was up to a woman and her doctor to choose whether or not to do an abortion in the first trimester of pregnancy. This barred states from provoking a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy
in the first trimester for any reason. In the second trimester, states had the authority to regulate abortions. During the third trimester, a once a fetus reached the point of viability, that is, the ability to survive outside of the womb, the state could restrict or ban abortion, except in instances where it was necessary to protect a woman's life and health. Because the case took years to decide. Before the verdict came down, mccorby gave birth and put her child up for adoption.
She later changed her views on abortion and joined the pro life side, though in a documentary released mccorby says
she only did so for the money. She died before the documentary was released in but back to the court in a second Supreme Court decision, a Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, narrowly upheld Row by a five to four decision, but the court also scrapped the trimester framework and found that legal restrictions on abortion were acceptable as long as they didn't place an undue burden upon women.
Rowe remained the law of the land for nearly half a century, but the balance of the Supreme Court began to change when Senate Republicans blocked Democratic President Barack Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Court and held open the seat, thus enabling Obama's successor, Republican Donald Trump, to dominate Neil Gorrish for the seat. In republic Kins approved to other Trump appointees, giving conservatives a six to three
control of the Court. Then, in early May of two, a leaked draft of an opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in a case called Dabbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization indicated that this conservative majority was ready to overturn Roe and Casey. This new case concerned Mississippi's ban on abortion after fifteen weeks. Dabbs is the name of a state
health officer. Two months after the leaked draft, on June two, the Court officially affirmed Mississippi's ban on abortion by a six to three vote in the Dabbs case, and it
furthermore overturned Row by narrower five to four margin. Justice Alito, writing on behalf of Justice's Gorge Clarence Thomas, Brett Covana and Amy Coney Barrett, found that Rowe had been quote egregiously wrong and deeply damaging, and that abortion was not to right protected either explicitly or implicitly in the Constitution.
That due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, he wrote, has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be deeply rooted in this nation's history and tradition. And implicit in the concept of ordered liberty. The right to abortion does not fall within this category. Whether that's historically correct is a matter of research that's out of the scope
of this episode. Because our understanding of the human body and reproduction has advanced so much in the past few hundred years. We only started to understand how sperm and eggs, and conception and the growth of a baby all work when researchers first proposed cell theory in the late eighteen thirties,
a full fifty years after the Constitution was written. But this ruling means that each state can set its own abortion laws, and almost half the states in the Union are likely to restrict or outlaw abortion under their current elected officials. The end of Row has provoked a political firestorm, but it could be just the start of an even
more bitter battle. Justice Thomas, in his concurring opinion, indicated that the Court should use their reasoning from Dabbs to re examine other precedents, including the right to access contraception from Griswold v. Connecticut, the freedom to engage in consensual sexual intimacy from Lawrence v. Texas, and the right to same sex marriage from a Burghafel v. Hodges. Today's episode is based on the articles you know these seven Supreme
Court cases by name, But what did they decide? Written by Dave Rus and Thirteen Overturned Supreme Court Cases written by Ed Grebanowski and Melanie red Seki McManus, both appearing on House to works dot Com. The brain Stuff is production by Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and is produced by Tyler klang F. More podcasts my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H