Overview

Her name was Norma McCorvey. She was twenty-one years old, unmarried, and pregnant for the third time. She had no money for an out-of-state abortion and no access to a safe illegal one. A lawyer referred her to two young women in Dallas who were looking for a plaintiff. She became Jane Roe. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court ruled seven to two that the Constitution protected a woman's right to decide whether to continue or terminate a pregnancy. Roe v. Wade was the most controversial decision the Court had issued in a generation. It established a constitutional right that millions of Americans would depend on for nearly fifty years - and that the Supreme Court would eliminate in June 2022. Jane Roe tells the complete story of the case that defined American politics for half a century. From Norma McCorvey's life and the circumstances that made her a plaintiff, to Sarah Weddington's argument before the Supreme Court at the age of twenty-six, to Harry Blackmun's landmark opinion and the trimester framework he invented, to the political backlash that began the day the decision was announced - Reid Harlow traces the full arc of a constitutional right from its creation to its end. This is the story of Roe v. Wade, of Planned Parenthood v. Casey, and of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. It is the story of a right that was won, defended, preserved by three justices who surprised everyone, and ultimately taken away by a majority that had been building toward that outcome for forty years. Norma McCorvey never had the abortion her case made possible for millions of others. She died in 2017, five years before the right she enabled was overruled. The story of what comes next is still being written.

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