... She was a role model for many physicians around the country.
If you had to pick one of the historical landmark court cases, Roe vs. Wade would be it. A pregnant single woman (Roe) brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas criminal abortion laws, which exclude securing or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpose of saving the mother's life. A licensed physician (Hallford), who had two state abortion prosecutions pending against him, was permitted to happen. A childless married couple (the Does), the wife not being pregnant, separately attacked the laws, basing alleged injury on the future possibilities of contraceptive failure, pregnancy, for parenthood, and impairment of the wife's health. A three-judge district court, which consolidated the actions, held that Roe and Hallford, and members of their classes, had standing to sue and presented justifiable controversies. Ruling that declaratory, though not injunctive, relief was warranted, the court declared the abortion statutes void as vague and over broadly infringing those plaintiffs' Ninth and Fourteenth Amendment rights. The court ruled the Does' complaint not justifiable. Appellants directly appealed to this Court on the injunctive rulings, and appellee cross- appealed from the District Court's grant of declaratory relief to Roe and Hallford. The case of Roe vs. Wade was argued twice before the U.S. Supreme Court, once on December 13, 1971 and again on October 11, 1972, due to a lack of consensus among the justices and the appointment of two new members to the court. The 7-2 decision, which legalized abortion in the U.S., was handed down on January 22, 1973. ...
