美国宪法史上的重大事件——Roe V.Wade(罗伊诉韦德案)

美国宪法史上的重大事件——Roe V.Wade（罗伊诉韦德案）（Roe V.Wade,410 U.S.113,1973）

In 1969,a 25-year-old pregnant single woman, Norma McCorvey under the pseudonym（'(p)sju:dənim n. 匿名,）"Jane Roe",brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas（'teksəs）criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life.

Ms McCorvey first filed the case in 1969. She was pregnant with her third child and claim ed that she had been raped. But the case was rejected and she was forced to give birth.

However, in 1973 her appeal made it to the US Supreme Court where she was represented by Sarah Weddington, a Dallas attorney.

State criminal abortion laws, like those involved here, t hat except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and other interests involved violate the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Am endment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a wom an's qualified right to term inate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override （不顾，无视）that right, it has legitim ate interests in protecting both the pregnant wom an's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "com pelling" point at various stages of the wom an's approach to term.

Conclusion

The court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, with a 7-to-2 majority vote in favor of McCorvey. Burger and Douglas' concurring opinion and White's dissenting opinion were issued separately, in the companion case of Doe v. Bolton.

By a vote of seven to two, the court justices ruled that governments lacked the power to prohibit abortions.

The court's judgement was based on the decision that a wom an's right to term inate her pregnancy cam e under the freedom of personal choice in fam ily matters as protected by the 14th Am endment of the US Constitution.The decision gave a wom an total autonom y over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the second and third trim esters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling.

Reason

Brief summary

The opinion of the Roe Court, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, declined to adopt the district court's Ninth Amendment rationale, and instead asserted that the "right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon

state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Douglas, in his concurring opinion from the companion case Doe v. Bolton, stated more emphatically that, "The Ninth Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights." Thus, the Roe majority rested its opinion squarely on the Constitution's due process clause.

the Court explained that the trimester of pregnancy is relevant to the weight of the factors in this balancing test. Thus, during the first trimester, the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion in any way; during the second trimester, the state may only regulate the abortion procedure "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health"; during the third trimester, the state can choose to restrict or proscribe abortion as it sees fit when the fetus is viable ("except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother").

summarizes the Court's legal conclusions, explaining that a T exas-style criminal statute was unconstitutional, and recapitulating the permissible extent of state regulation in each of the three Constitutionally relevant time periods of pregnancy (i.e. divided by "approximately the end of the first trimester" and "the stage subsequent to viability").

Dissents

From this historical record, Rehnquist concluded that, "There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." Therefore, in his view, "the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."

Trimester system

The case created the "trimester" system that:

∙gives American women an absolute right to an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy

∙allows some government regulation in the second trimester of pregnancy

∙declares that states may restrict or ban abortions in the last trimester as the foetus nears the point where it could live

outside the womb; in this trimester a woman can obtain an

abortion despite any legal ban only if doctors certify it is

necessary to save her life or health.

【1】事件概要

1969年，一位化名为杰内•罗伊的妇女和其他人一起向德克萨斯州限制堕胎的法令提出了挑战。该法令规定，除非因为维护孕妇的生命，州内一律禁止妇