why did Roe happen when it did

[brucejoel99]

The plain & simple fact is that, at the time Roe was decided, even some of the justices that leaned conservative didn't view abortion as posing a particularly ideological question. Although all of the justices understood that Roe addressed a profoundly important question, none of them imagined that it'd later become a flashpoint of American politics or that it'd continue to shape those politics for decades to come.

Additionally, what Americans thought about abortion in 1973 was largely informed by the experience of women & by what they knew about that experience. In the years leading up to Roe, approximately 1 million women each year had an illegal abortion. The vast majority of those women had to resort either to dangerous self-induced abortions or to the dark & often forbidding underworld of untrained & unreliable back-alley abortionists. As a result, many thousands suffered serious illness or permanent injury, not to mention those who died in the course of illegal abortions.

This was the world pre-Roe v. Wade. Faced with the realities of this world, the justices of the Supreme Court attempted in Roe to settle the abortion issue then & there, once & for all. Of course, it turned out not to be that simple. A succession of Republican presidents have appointed justices to the Court in the hope & expectation that they would vote to overrule Roe. Thus far, they've been disappointed, as justices like John Paul Stevens (Ford), Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan), Anthony Kennedy (Reagan), & David Souter (H.W. Bush) have risen above partisan ideology to preserve the fundamental right of women to control their own lives & destinies, i.e. the right recognized by the Supreme Court 46 years ago.

[brucejoel99]

A succession of Republican presidents have appointed justices to the Court in the hope & expectation that they would vote to overrule Roe. Thus far, they've been disappointed, as justices like John Paul Stevens (Ford), Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan), Anthony Kennedy (Reagan), & David Souter (H.W. Bush) have risen above partisan ideology to preserve the fundamental right of women to control their own lives & destinies, i.e. the right recognized by the Supreme Court 46 years ago.

Interestingly enough, I read somewhere that Stevens in an interview mentioned that in his confirmation hearings - no one asked him about his opinion on Roe, which had only been decided three years earlier.

Yep, not a single senator asked Stevens a question about Roe or about his views on abortion which, if anything, serves as an additional measure of just how uncontroversial Roe was at the time.

[brucejoel99]

A succession of Republican presidents have appointed justices to the Court in the hope & expectation that they would vote to overrule Roe. Thus far, they've been disappointed, as justices like John Paul Stevens (Ford), Sandra Day O'Connor (Reagan), Anthony Kennedy (Reagan), & David Souter (H.W. Bush) have risen above partisan ideology to preserve the fundamental right of women to control their own lives & destinies, i.e. the right recognized by the Supreme Court 46 years ago.

Interestingly enough, I read somewhere that Stevens in an interview mentioned that in his confirmation hearings - no one asked him about his opinion on Roe, which had only been decided three years earlier.

Yep, not a single senator asked Stevens a question about Roe or about his views on abortion which, if anything, serves as an additional measure of just how uncontroversial Roe was at the time.

Among the political classes, yes. But Roe (with Griswold to a lesser extent) birthed a whole new generation of political activists who saw the decision as pretty awful from the start.

Not really, though. It was pretty much Jerry Falwell & the evangelical leaders of the Moral Majority movement's seizing onto abortion in the late 1970s as a powerful religious conservative rallying cry that turned it into an important voting issue for Republicans.