Roe v. Wade was a landmark legal decision issued on January 22, 1973, in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas statute banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure across the United States. The court held that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion had been illegal throughout much of the country since the late 19th century. Since the 1973 ruling, many states imposed restrictions on abortion rights. The Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade on June 24, 2022, holding that there was no longer a federal constitutional right to an abortion. Abortion Before Roe v. WadeUntil the late 19th century, abortion was legal in the United States before “quickening,” the point at which a woman could first feel movements of the fetus, typically around the fourth month of pregnancy. Some of the early regulations related to abortion were enacted in the 1820s and 1830s and dealt with the sale of dangerous drugs that women used to induce abortions. Despite these regulations and the fact that the drugs sometimes proved fatal to women, they continued to be advertised and sold. In the late 1850s, the newly established American Medical Association began calling for the criminalization of abortion, partly in an effort to eliminate doctors’ competitors such as midwives and homeopaths. Additionally, some nativists, alarmed by the country’s growing population of immigrants, were anti-abortion because they feared declining birth rates among white, American-born, Protestant women. In 1869, the Catholic Church banned abortion at any stage of pregnancy, while in 1873, Congress passed the Comstock law, which made it illegal to distribute contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through the U.S. mail. By the 1880s, abortion was outlawed across most of the country. During the 1960s, during the women’s rights movement, court cases involving contraceptives laid the groundwork for Roe v. Wade. In 1965, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a law banning the distribution of birth control to married couples, ruling that the law violated their implied right to privacy under the U.S. Constitution. And in 1972, the Supreme Court struck down a law prohibiting the distribution of contraceptives to unmarried adults. Meanwhile, in 1970, Hawaii became the first state to legalize abortion, although the law only applied to the state’s residents. That same year, New York legalized abortion, with no residency requirement. By the time of Roe v. Wade in 1973, abortion was also legally available in Alaska and Washington. Jane RoeIn 1969, Norma McCorvey, a Texas woman in her early 20s, sought to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. McCorvey, who had grown up in difficult, impoverished circumstances, previously had given birth twice and given up both children for adoption. At the time of McCorvey’s pregnancy in 1969 abortion was legal in Texas—but only for the purpose of saving a woman’s life. While American women with the financial means could obtain abortions by traveling to other countries where the procedure was safe and legal, or pay a large fee to a U.S. doctor willing to secretly perform an abortion, those options were out of reach to McCorvey and many other women. As a result, some women resorted to illegal, dangerous, “back-alley” abortions or self-induced abortions. In the 1950s and 1960s, the estimated number of illegal abortions in the United States ranged from 200,000 to 1.2 million per year, according to the Guttmacher Institute. After trying unsuccessfully to get an illegal abortion, McCorvey was referred to Texas attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington, who were interested in challenging anti-abortion laws. In court documents, McCorvey became known as “Jane Roe.” Henry WadeIn 1970, the attorneys filed a lawsuit on behalf of McCorvey and all the other women “who were or might become pregnant and want to consider all options,” against Henry Wade, the district attorney of Dallas County, where McCorvey lived. Earlier, in 1964, Wade was in the national spotlight when he prosecuted Jack Ruby, who killed Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. Supreme Court RulingIn June 1970, a Texas district court ruled that the state’s abortion ban was illegal because it violated a constitutional right to privacy. Afterward, Wade declared he’d continue to prosecute doctors who performed abortions. The case eventually was appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, McCovey gave birth and put the child up for adoption. On Jan 22, 1973, the Supreme Court, in a 7-2 decision, struck down the Texas law banning abortion, effectively legalizing the procedure nationwide. In a majority opinion written by Justice Harry Blackmun, the court declared that a woman’s right to an abortion was implicit in the right to privacy protected by the 14th Amendment. The court divided pregnancy into three trimesters, and declared that the choice to end a pregnancy in the first trimester was solely up to the woman. In the second trimester, the government could regulate abortion, although not ban it, in order to protect the mother’s health. In the third trimester, the state could prohibit abortion to protect a fetus that could survive on its own outside the womb, except when a woman’s health was in danger. READ MORE: 5 Historic Supreme Court Rulings Based on the 14th Amendment Legacy of Roe v. WadeNorma McCorvey maintained a low profile following the court’s decision, but in the 1980s she was active in the abortion rights movement. However, in the mid-1990s, after becoming friends with the head of an anti-abortion group and converting to Catholicism, she turned into a vocal opponent of the procedure. Since Roe v. Wade, many states imposed restrictions that weaken abortion rights, and Americans remain divided over support for a woman’s right to choose an abortion. In 1992, litigation against Pennsylvania’s Abortion Control Act reached the Supreme Court in a case called Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. The court upheld the central ruling in Roe v. Wade but allowed states to pass more abortion restrictions as long as they did not pose an “undue burden." Roe v. Wade OverturnedIn 2022, the nation's highest court deliberated on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which regarded the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Lower courts had ruled the law was unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade. Under Roe, states had been prohibited from banning abortions before around 23 weeks—when a fetus is considered able to survive outside a woman's womb. In its decision, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 in favor of Mississippi's law—and overturned Roe after its nearly 50 years as precedent. SourcesAbortion in American History. The Atlantic.
The Pill | Timeline
Genesis 384-322 B.C. 23-79 A.D. 1725-1798 1827 1832 1838 1839 1843 1870s 1873 1875 Katharine Dexter McCormick is born into a wealthy and prominent family in Dexter, Michigan. 1879 1880 1886 1890 Viennese gynecologist Emil Knauer discovers the existence of chemicals that control the body's metabolic processes. After he observes a wide variety of these chemical substances, in 1905 the mysterious chemicals are named hormones, from the Greek hormaô, "stir up" or "incite.". 1903 1904 1906 The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is established to protect consumers from fraudulent medical products and quackery. 1912 1914 August: Margaret Sanger coins the term "birth control" and dares to use the phrase in the June 1914 issue of The Woman Rebel. For this crime and others, Sanger is indicted for nine violations of the Comstock Law. Rather than face the charges, she flees the country to continue her work in England. 1915 March: In New York City a group of women form the National Birth Control League, an antecedent of the International Planned Parenthood Federation. 1916 Oct.16: Sanger, with her sister and a friend, opens the first birth control clinic in America, in Brooklyn, New York. For the first time in American history, women can receive organized instruction in birth control. Oct. 26: After only 10 days, Sanger's clinic is raided by the vice squad and shut down. The women are arrested and all the condoms and diaphragms at the clinic are confiscated. 1917 1918 1920 1921 1923 1920s 1924 1926 1928 1929 1930s 1930 August 15: At the world assembly of Anglican bishops, known as the Lambeth Conference, a resolution is passed favoring limited acceptance of birth control. This resolution is a watershed for the Protestant Church. December 31: The Roman Catholic Church makes its first definitive statement on birth control. Pope Pius XI issues an encyclical titled Casti Canubi (Of Chaste Marriage) calling birth control a sin, and opposing birth control by any artificial means. 1931 1934 1936 Margaret Sanger orchestrates a court battle over a shipment of Japanese diaphragms to a doctor in the U.S. In a decision titled U.S. vs. One Package, the court rules that physicians can receive contraceptive devices and information via the mail unless prohibited by a specific local law. It is a major victory for Sanger and birth control advocates. The case legitimizes birth control commerce among the medical profession and leads to the American Medical Association (AMA) officially recognizing birth control as part of a doctor's medical practice. 1940s The diaphragm is the most effective form of birth control available in America, but the least popular method due to its high cost and the need to see a physician. Instead, most women rely on inexpensive but less reliable commercial douches for contraception. 1941 1943 1944 1945 1947 1949 1950s Although the vast majority of doctors approve of birth control for the good of families, anti-birth control laws on the books in thirty states still prohibit or restrict the sale and advertisement of contraceptive devices. It is a felony in Massachusetts to "exhibit, sell, prescribe, provide, or give out information" about them. In Connecticut, it is a crime for a couple to use contraception. 1950 1951 The Planned Parenthood Federation of America runs 200 birth control clinics. Margaret Sanger has been successful in fighting legal restrictions on contraceptives, and birth control has gained wide acceptance in America. Still, Sanger remains deeply unsatisfied, because women have no better methods for birth control than they did when she first envisioned "the pill" over 40 years earlier. January/February: Margaret Sanger, now 72 years old, makes one last ditch effort to find someone to invent her "magic pill." At a dinner party in New York City she is introduced to Gregory Pincus and implores him to take up her quest. To her surprise, he tells her that it might be possible with hormones, but that he will need significant funding to proceed. April 25: Sanger manages to secure a tiny grant for Gregory Pincus from Planned Parenthood, and Pincus begins initial work on the use of hormones as a contraceptive at The Worcester Foundation. Pincus sets out to prove his hypothesis that injections of the hormone progesterone will inhibit ovulation and thus prevent pregnancy in his lab animals. October: Pincus goes to the drug company G.D. Searle and requests additional funding from them for the pill project. Searle's director of research tells Pincus that his previous work for them was "a lamentable failure" and refuses to invest in the project. October 15: Unbeknownst to Pincus or Sanger, a chemist named Carl Djerassi working out of an obscure lab in Mexico City creates an orally effective form of synthetic progesterone -- a progesterone pill. The actual chemistry of the Pill has been invented, but neither Djerassi nor the company he works for, Syntex, has any interest in testing it as a contraceptive. 1952 Frank Colton, chief chemist at G.D. Searle, independently develops another oral form of synthetic progesterone. At a scientific conference, Pincus has a chance encounter with the renowned Harvard obstetrician and gynecologist Dr. John Rock. Pincus is astonished to learn that Rock has already been testing the chemical contraceptive on women and demonstrating that it works. Rock has been giving the same drug to his infertility patients with the eventual goal of stimulating pregnancy after his patients finish a 3 to 5 month regimen of progesterone injections. 1953 1954 The Pill regimen still in use today is established. Pincus persuades Rock to administer the progesterone for only 21 days, followed by a 7-day break to allow for menstruation. They know the Pill will be controversial and want oral progesterone to be seen as a "natural " process, not something that interferes with the normal menstrual cycle. 1955 The results from the first human trials are conclusive. Not one of the 50 women in the experiment ovulates while on the drug. Pincus and Rock are positive that they have found the perfect oral birth control pill. October: Margaret Sanger invites Gregory Pincus to the 5th Annual International Planned Parenthood League conference in Tokyo, Japan, where Pincus announces the results of his progesterone study. Despite the magnitude of his announcement, the press at the conference remains skeptical and does not pick up the story. December: At the prestigious Laurentian Conference on Endocrinology in Canada, before an audience of scientists involved in hormone research, Rock presents a paper stating that the progesterone pill inhibits ovulation. Word spreads quickly through the scientific world and drug industry that Pincus and Rock have found a birth control pill. 1956 April: Since anti-birth control laws in Massachusetts and many other states make it impossible for Rock to conduct the larger human studies necessary for FDA approval, Rock and Pincus launch the first large scale clinical trials for the Pill in San Juan, Puerto Rico. November: The news of the Pill spreads to the general public. An article in Science magazine informs readers that women have taken a synthetic hormone as an oral contraceptive and it works. December: The medical director in charge of the Puerto Rico trials informs Pincus and Rock that "Enovid gives 100% protection against pregnancy," but reports that the Pill causes too many side effects to be "accepted generally." Pincus and Rock proceed with the trials, convinced that while the Pill may cause discomfort, it is safe. Pincus and Rock discover that Searle has been sending them pills contaminated with a minuscule amount of synthetic estrogen in addition to the progesterone -- a major set back for the trials. However, after testing new shipments of uncontaminated Enovid, they conclude that the combination of estrogen and progesterone (the same combination still used today) reduces some problems like breakthrough bleeding. 1957 Spring: In addition to the Puerto Rico trials, Pincus also sets up full-scale trials in Haiti and Mexico City. Summer: The FDA approves the use of Enovid for the treatment of severe menstrual disorders and requires the drug label to carry the warning that Enovid will prevent ovulation. 1959 Less than two years after FDA approval of Enovid for therapeutic purposes, an unusually large number of American women mysteriously develop severe menstrual disorders and ask their doctors for the drug. By late 1959, over half a million American women are taking Enovid, presumably for the "off-label" contraceptive purposes. Oct. 29: Excited by the vast potential market for the Pill, Searle files an application with the FDA to license the 10 milligram Enovid -- the same pill approved for menstrual disorders -- for use as a contraceptive. The application is based on field trials with 897 women, making it one of the most extensively tested drugs to ever come before the FDA for approval. 1960 Winter: The FDA reviews Searle's application for the first drug in history to be given to a healthy person for long-term use. Searle is doing $37 million in annual sales of the Pill for "menstrual disorders" and pushes the FDA for approval. April: John Rock tells the national press that the Pill, since it simply extends a woman's "safe period," should be considered an extension of the Vatican-approved rhythm method. May 11: Searle receives FDA approval to sell Enovid as a birth control pill. Searle is the first and only pharmaceutical company to sell an oral contraceptive and it has a lucrative monopoly. 1960s The pharmaceutical industry awakens to the huge market for effective contraception, and 13 major drug companies, nine of them American, work to develop new birth control methods and their own versions of the Pill. 1961 The American public learns that Thalidomide, a sedative given to pregnant women in Europe to control morning sickness, causes horrible birth defects. In the U.S., the drug has never received FDA approval, but the age of faith in "wonder drugs" appears to be over, and the American public begins to question the safety of drugs. In the wake of the Thalidomide tragedy, the FDA will enact stricter regulations for human drug tests. 1962 September 1: Word of serious side effects, such as blood clots and heart attacks caused by the Pill, begins to spread. Searle receives reports of 132 blood clots, including 11 deaths, but the company declares that there is no conclusive evidence demonstrating that the blood clots are a direct result of the Pill. 1963 In his crusade to make the Pill acceptable to the Catholic church, John Rock publishes The Time Has Come: A Catholic Doctor's Proposal to End the Battle over Birth Control, and becomes the de facto public spokesman for the Pill. 1964 Less than a decade after President Eisenhower declared that the government should not get involved with birth control, President Lyndon B. Johnson pushes through legislation for federal support of birth control for the poor. June 23: Pope Paul VI creates the Papal Commission on Population, the Family and Natality, informally known as the "Birth Control Commission." This is the year of Vatican II and monumental reforms in the Catholic Church. Many within the church support the use of the Pill. Both clerics and the laity are extremely hopeful that the Pope will approve the use of the Pill for Catholics. The Pill becomes the most popular form of reversible birth control in America. Despite general public approval for birth control, ghosts of the Comstock Laws linger. Eight states still prohibit the sale of contraceptives, and laws in Massachusetts and Connecticut still prevent the dissemination of information about birth control. 1965 Just five years after the Pill's FDA approval, more than 6.5 million American woman are taking oral contraceptives, making the Pill the most popular form of birth control in the U.S. Searle still dominates the market, and does $89 million in sales of Enovid. Vatican II comes to an end and the Roman Catholic Church implements some reforms -- but a decision on the Pill is not made. 1966 September 6: Margaret Sanger dies in Tucson, Arizona, just shy of her 87th birthday. 1967 Massachusetts liberalizes its birth control laws, but still prohibits the sale of birth control to unmarried women. August 22: In the prime of his career, Gregory Pincus dies in a Boston hospital at age of 64 from myeloid metaplasia, a rare disease of the white blood cells, due to exposure to lab chemicals. December 28: Katharine McCormick dies at the age of 92 in Boston, Massachusetts. No major newspaper gives her an obituary, and with her passing, her contribution to the birth of the Pill is forgotten. December: The Pittsburgh branch of the NAACP charges that Planned Parenthood clinics, which provide the Pill and other forms of birth control in low income and minority neighborhoods, are devoted to keeping the black birth rate as low as possible. In a public statement the organization declares that birth control is being used as an instrument of racial genocide. A strong accusation, it touches a cord in minority communities and the term "black genocide" catches on. 1968 David Niven and Deborah Kerr star in the Hollywood film Prudence and the Pill. Birth control, once considered obscene and vulgar, is now a pop culture icon. July 25: Pope Paul VI reveals his decision on the Pill in an encyclical titled Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life). To the dismay of Catholics around the world — and ignoring the recommendations of the Papal commission on birth control -- the Pope states unequivocally that the Church remains opposed to all forms of birth control except the rhythm method. 1969 1970 January - March: Influenced by Seaman's book, U.S. Senator Gaylord Nelson convenes Senate hearings on the safety of the Pill. Radical feminists disrupt the male-dominated hearings and demand women taking the Pill be informed of all the potential dangers and side effects. June: In a victory for feminists and the women's health movement, the FDA orders that all oral contraceptive packages must contain a patient information insert detailing possible side effects from the Pill. 1970s Scientists determine that smoking is major factor contributing to blood clotting in Pill users, but that the lower doses of pill not only greatly reduce the risk of clots but also reduce other side effects such as weight gain, headaches and nausea. 1972 1973 1974 Early 1980s 1980s New versions of low-dosage oral contraceptives are introduced. These products vary the amount of progesterone and estrogen in the drug during the 21-day cycle. Only 3.4% of birth control pills on the market are the original high-dosage pills. 1982 1984 An estimated 50 to 80 million women worldwide take the Pill. 1988 Surveys show that birth control has disappeared from the list of medical research's 35 top priorities. 1990 |