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The ruling was rooted in the court's view of the right to privacy. Blackmun held that such a right has now become an indivisible part of every American's "liberty," which is specifically protected by the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment. Such a protection, he indicated, more than overcomes any state interest in using abortion statutes—as so many states have—to regulate sexual conduct, however indirectly. A fetus, he added, is not a person under the Constitution and thus has no legal right to life —a conclusion that countless antiabortionists violently object to. Blackmun was also swayed by the fact that most abortion prohibitions were enacted in the 19th century when the procedure was more dangerous than now. His different standards for different stages of pregnancy are largely a reflection of medical progress. Abortion in the first three months, he pointed out, has become at least as safe as childbirth.* After that, he said, because the dangers do increase, so should the states' authority to protect the health of the mother.
The battle over abortion divided the Justices in unusually rancorous debate (see box). To Dissenters Byron White and William Rehnquist, the final decision seemed such a naked exercise of the "power of choice" that it smacked of judicial legislation. Said White: "In a sensitive area such as this, involving as it does issues over which reasonable men may easily and heatedly differ, I cannot accept the court's [determination]. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs."
If White and Rehnquist eventually wound up in lonely dissent on the court, they were soon joined by a clamor of antiabortionists across the country. New York's Terence Cardinal Cooke called the opinion "a tragic utilitarian judgment" and added that "judicial decisions are not necessarily sound moral decisions." James Lenehan, chairman of a Connecticut Right to Life committee, wondered "how the Supreme Court can at one time rule against capital punishment and then allow the wholesale slaughter of unborn children." Georgia's Right to Life chairman, Joe Bowman, was reminded "of the 1857 Dred Scott decision, which said that although he may have a beating heart and a functioning brain and be biologically human, the black man was not a legal person." More mildly, Bishop William Cannon of the United Methodist Church warned: "If this leads to promiscuity and to taking the creation of life lightly, then it is a step backward."