January 22, 1973
7–2 Decision
Majority: Blackmun, Burger, Douglas, Brennan, Stewart, Marshall, and Powell
Dissent: White and Rehnquist

In Roe v. Wade, the Court recognized that a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy is included within the constitutional protection afforded to individual autonomy and privacy. Writing for the majority, Justice Blackmun described the right of personal privacy as fundamental, and concluded that the right "is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy." At the same time, the Court rejected arguments that a fetus is "person" for purposes of the Fourteenth Amendment and therefore endowed with a constitutionally protected right to life. Nonetheless, the Court determined that a woman’s right to seek an abortion is not absolute. Her interests can be balanced against the State’s interest in potential life and maternal health.

With these competing interests in mind, the Court afforded the highest degree of constitutional protection – strict scrutiny -- to laws limiting abortion, and established the so-called "trimester" framework for analyzing restrictions on abortion. During the first trimester of a woman's pregnancy, "the abortion decision and its effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman’s attending physician." During the second trimester, "the State, in promoting its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health." During the last trimester, or beginning roughly at the point of viability, the State’s interest in potential life becomes compelling and "the State . . . 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."

Applying this analysis, the Court invalidated the Texas statute at issue, which banned all abortions except those done "for the purpose of saving the life of the mother." In doing so, the court noted that similar statutes were on the books in a majority of the states. Thus, the effect of the ruling was to invalidate bans on abortion throughout the country.

Justice Rehnquist wrote a dissenting opinion, expressing his "difficulty in concluding . . . that the right of ‘privacy’ [was] involved in this case," and argued that the rational basis test "traditionally applied in the area of social and economic legislation" was the more appropriate standard. Justice White argued for fetal personhood and accused the majority of an exercise of "raw judicial power."

At the time that Roe was decided, the Court also issued its opinion in Doe v. Bolton, 410 U.S.179 (1973), upholding against a vagueness challenge a Georgia statute permitting physicians to provide abortions when necessary in their "best medical judgment." In doing so, the Court noted that the term "health" as relevant to the statute, could encompass consideration of a broad range of factors, including "physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age." The Court struck down requirements subjecting abortions to approval by a committee or other concurring physicians.