WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court`s historic decision in 1973 that legalized abortion came in the case called Roe vs. Wade.
Jane Roe was a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, an unwed mother in Texas. Henry Wade was the Dallas County district attorney.
McCorvey, now 38, manages apartment buildings in Dallas. She has had three children but never an abortion. Her first child, now 20, was the product of a short marriage and is cared for by her mother. Her other two children were given up for adoption.
She lent her case to abortion advocates in 1970 when she became pregnant with her third child and was arranging for its adoption. Her name went on a challenge to a Texas law that prohibited abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother.
The federal district court struck down the Texas law and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court, which issued its decision January 22, 1973.
In his opinion for the majority, Justice Harry Blackmun, still on the court today, wrote a long history of the legality and acceptance of abortion, from the ancient Persian Empire to the late 20th Century. He noted various laws making all abortions a criminal activity, a criminal activity only after the fetus was considered viable, and even no crime at all.
He said the laws banning abortion, mostly enacted in the latter part of the 19th century, appeared to have three aims - to discourage illicit sexual conduct, protect the mother from what was then a life-threatening procedure and to protect the fetus.
Blackmun said that in 1840 only eight states had statutes dealing with abortion. His historical review also showed debate over whether the fetus is a living being predates Christ.