Very few cases are as well known as Roe v Wade, the landmark US Supreme Court case that, in 1973, affirmed that women have a right to an abortion. Until its overruling in 2022 by Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, this decision was key in keeping abortion legal even in the most conservative states. However, compared to the outcome and consequences of the case, the details of the case itself are relatively niche.
The basis and idea of the case had an outline before the plaintiffs even had a client to represent. Sarah Weddington had just graduated from law school, in the third year of which she had an illegal abortion in Mexico. Though it is likely that this influenced her views regarding abortion, she did not publicly reveal this at the time of the case. Nor did she represent herself; instead, she went looking for prospective clients, something which was technically allowed because the case was one of public interest. In the end, she found a client: a 21-year-old woman who was pregnant with her third child: the woman who would become “Jane Roe”.
Her real name was Norma McCorvey, but for this case she was identified under the pseudonym of Jane Roe (a variant of Jane Doe, both being standard placeholder names). At the time that she became Weddington’s client, she knew very little about abortion, and had a neutral stance on it, but was convinced to play the part of a woman seeking an abortion by Weddington. Thirty-three years later, she recounted being told, “Yes. You’re white. You’re young, pregnant, and you want an abortion.” Demographics were key to Weddington’s plan since, though Jim Crow laws no longer existed, it was reasonable to assume that the case would be far more successful if the jury (who were likely to be white and probably still influenced by the shadow of Jim Crow) sympathised with Jane Roe.
“Wade”, however, was not a pseudonym. Henry Wade, unlike Sarah Weddington, had extensive legal experience, for example as the prosecutor against Jack Ruby, the murderer of Lee Harvey Oswald (who had killed President John F. Kennedy). He was the District Attorney (essentially, chief prosecutor) for Dallas County, the second most populous county after Harris County (which has Houston). As one of the most important lawyers in the state, when Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey), represented by Sarah Weddington et al., filed their case arguing that state abortion laws were unconstitutional, he took up the defendent’s role.
The case was the first that Sarah Weddington had tried, initially tried in the US District Court and later in the Court of Appeals. After the judges in the Court of Appeals found that the law violated the ninth ammendment’s right to privacy, the state appealed to the Supreme Court. There, the ruling was upheld, as the right to privacy was “broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether to terminate her pregnancy.”
The case did not rule on when a foetus becomes a person, nor did it exclude the possibility of limits regarding how late an abortion may be carried out; the pregnancy trimester framework was created by the court in this ruling for this purpose! Most relevant to the overall impact of the ruling, the court ruled that during the first trimester, states should impose minimal restrictions on the right to an abortion.
However, if we focus more on the individuals involved in this case, we see the emotional heart of this case. Later in life, Norma McCorvey described her decision to be Jane Roe as one of the worst decisions of her life, and worked with anti-abortion activists. On the other hand, without a doubt thousands of women have had abortions that would not be possible without Roe v Wade. Though, in our Zeitgeist we remember Roe v Wade almost only because of its broader impact, I think looking at the motivations and backgrounds of the people involved in the case is an often overlooked aspect of this trial.
Furthermore, it allows us to better understand the emotions that could have affected the trial, which can raise internal questions about the role of emotion in law: for example, why was Weddington’s success at least partially dependent on the colour of McCorvey’s skin? How do we weigh up McCorvey’s regret later in life with Weddington’s experience of an illegal abortion? I do not have any answers for these, but in light of Roe v Wade’s lesser-known aspects, we can reflect on all of those questions, and it is for this reason that I have chosen Roe v Wade as the case of this week.