Abortion in the United States

===''Roe v. Wade''===
{{main|Roe v. Wade|l1=''Roe v. Wade''}}
[[File:Burger Court in 1973.jpg|thumb|The [[United States Supreme Court]] membership in 1973<br>F.l.t.r. seated [[Potter Stewart]], [[William O. Douglas]], [[Warren E. Burger]] (chief justice), [[William J. Brennan Jr.|William Brennan]], and [[Byron White]].<br>Standing [[Lewis F. Powell]], [[Thurgood Marshall]], [[Harry Blackmun]], and [[William Rehnquist]].]]

Prior to ''Roe v. Wade'', 30 states prohibited abortion without exception, 16 states banned abortion except in certain special circumstances (e.g. rape, incest, and health threat to mother), 3 states allowed residents to obtain abortions, and New York allowed abortions generally.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2003/03/lessons-roe-will-past-be-prologue |title=Lessons from Before Roe: Will Past be Prologue? |work=The Guttmacher Policy Review |volume=6 |issue=1 |Date=2023-03-01 |accessdate=2017-01-11 |firast1=Rachel |last1=Benson Gold}}</ref> Early that year, on January 22, 1973, the [[U.S. Supreme Court]] in ''Roe v. Wade'' invalidated all of these laws, and set guidelines for the availability of abortion. The decision returned abortion to its liberalized pre-1820 status.<ref name="Hardin 1978"/> ''Roe'' established that the [[right of privacy]] of a woman to obtain an abortion "must be considered against important state interests in regulation".<ref name=":1">''Roe v. Wade'', {{ussc|410|113|1973|source=j|pin=154}} "We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified, and must be considered against important state interests in regulation."</ref> ''Roe'' also established a trimester framework, defined as the end of the first [[pregnancy trimester]] (12 weeks), as the threshold for state interest, such that states were prohibited from banning abortion in the first trimester but allowed to impose increasing restrictions or outright bans later in pregnancy.<ref name=":1" />

In deciding ''Roe v. Wade'', the Court ruled that a [[Texas]] statute forbidding abortion except when necessary to save the life of the mother was unconstitutional. The Court arrived at its decision by concluding that the issue of abortion and abortion rights falls under the [[right of privacy in the United States]] (e.g. federal constitutionally-protected right), in the sense of the right of a person not to be encroached by the state. In its opinion, it listed several landmark cases where the court had previously found a right to privacy implied by the Constitution. The Court did not recognize a right to abortion in all cases, saying: "State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother."<ref name="Roe 1973">''Roe v. Wade'', [http://webarchive.loc.gov/all/20011130053106/http://laws.findlaw.com/us/410/113.html 410 U.S. 113] (1972). Findlaw.com. Retrieved April 14, 2011.</ref>

The Court held that a right to privacy existed and included the right to have an abortion. The court found that a mother had a right to abortion until viability, a point to be determined by the abortion doctor. After viability a woman can obtain an abortion for health reasons, which the Court defined broadly to include psychological well-being. A central issue in the ''Roe'' case and in the wider abortion debate in general is whether human life or personhood begins at conception, birth, or at some point in between. The Court declined to make an attempt at resolving this issue, writing: "We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins. When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is not in a position to speculate as to the answer." Instead, it chose to point out that historically, under English and American [[common law]] and statutes, "the unborn have never been recognized ... as persons in the whole sense", and thus the fetuses are not legally entitled to the protection afforded by the right to life specifically enumerated in the Fourteenth Amendment. Rather than asserting that human life begins at any specific point, the Court declared that the state has a "compelling interest" in protecting "potential life" at the point of viability.<ref name="Roe 1973"/>

====''Doe v. Bolton''====
{{main|Doe v. Bolton|l1=''Doe v. Bolton''}}
Under ''Roe v. Wade'', state governments may not prohibit [[Late termination of pregnancy|late terminations of pregnancy]] when "necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother", even if it would cause the demise of a viable fetus.<ref>{{ussc|name=Roe v. Wade|volume=410|page=113|pin=164|year=1973}} ("If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it may go so far as to proscribe abortion during [the third trimester], except when it is necessary to preserve the life or health of the mother.")</ref> This rule was clarified by the 1973 judicial decision ''[[Doe v. Bolton]]'', which specifies "that the medical judgment may be exercised in the light of all factors—physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman's age—relevant to the well-being of the patient".<ref>{{ussc|name=Doe v. Bolton|volume=410|page=179|pin=192|year=1973}}</ref><ref name=PBS_Wars>{{cite web|title=Frontline / Abortion Wars / Roe v Wade and Beyond|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/clinic/wars/cases.html|website=PBS|access-date=October 5, 2015}}</ref><ref name=ACLU_25>{{cite web|title=The Right to Choose at 25: Looking Back and Ahead|url=https://www.aclu.org/right-choose-25-looking-back-and-ahead|website=ACLU|access-date=October 5, 2015}}</ref> It is by this provision for the mother's mental health that women in the U.S. legally choose abortion after viability when screenings reveal abnormalities that do not cause a baby to die shortly after birth.<ref name=Dailard>{{cite journal|last1=Dailard|first1=Cynthia|title=Issues and Implications, Abortion Restrictions and the Drive for Mental Health Parity: A Conflict in Values?|journal=The Guttmacher Report on Public Policy|date=June 1999|volume=2|issue=3|url=https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/02/3/gr020304.html|access-date=October 2, 2015|archive-date=October 4, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151004000450/https://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/tgr/02/3/gr020304.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Palley>{{cite book|last1=Palley|first1=Marian Lief and Howard|title=The Politics of Women's Health Care in the US|date=2014|publisher=Palgrave Pivot|location=New York & London|isbn=978-1137008633|page=74|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Pa7mAgAAQBAJ&q=institute%20women's%20health%20doe%20bolton&pg=PA74|access-date=October 5, 2015}}</ref><ref name=PP_After_1st>{{cite news|title=Abortion after the First Trimester in the United States|url=https://www.plannedparenthood.org/files/5113/9611/5527/Abortion_After_first_trimester.pdf|access-date=October 5, 2015|publisher=Planned Parenthood|date=February 2014}}</ref><ref name=DU_viability>{{cite web|title=Fetal Viability And Late-Term Abortion: The Facts And The Law|url=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5758875|website=Democratic Underground|access-date=October 5, 2015}}</ref>