Whose Life Is It? (Roe v. Wade)

The long, emotional battle over abortion approaches a climax as the Supreme Court prepares for a historic challenge to Roe v. Wade

Roe v. Wade. Sometimes those seem like the most contentious words in American law. Short and unassuming though they are, they connote other, more explosive terms: abortion and murder, morality and privacy, the right to life and the right to choose. Attached to those words are some of the most intractable passions in American life. Writing about medical advances that improve the chances for a fetus to survive outside the womb, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor once declared that the 1973 decision was "on a collision course with itself." Sixteen years after Roe obliged all 50 states to legalize...

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