Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade to the Present

Abstract

Beyond any doubt, women’s reproductive healthcare rights are in serious jeopardy. The promise of Roe v. Wade, the landmark (7-2) Supreme Court case decriminalizing abortion, now appears more illusory than real for millions of women. In 1973, even while five of the seven justices who voted to decriminalize abortion in Roe were nominated by Republican presidents, today that landscape is dramatically different. For pregnant people in abortion battleground states, abortion rights remain a reality in law, but not necessarily in practice.

This Review engages Abortion and the Law in America: Roe v. Wade To the Present by Professor Mary Ziegler, the Stearns Weaver Miller Professor at Florida State University College of Law. It explores the antiabortion movements that galvanized in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s that now deliver a well-planned, stealth attack on reproductive rights—generally and abortion specifically. Namely, what began as a violent and directly confrontational antiabortion movement that prioritized a constitutional amendment to ban abortion and affirm fetal life failed. However, its replacement, the contemporary lean in to targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP laws), with the aid of the Supreme Court, may be the undoing of Roe v. Wade. Goodwin examines Professor Ziegler's important book and the strategies to undo abortion rights.