Harry Blackmun Abortion Case Analysis

It went to the Supreme Court and the laws were overturned in a 7-2 decision with Justices White and Rehnquist dissenting. This case was monumental because it effectively legalized abortion during the first trimester in the United States. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion in this case. In this opinion, he discussed the historical motives behind the type laws and the lack of current applicably of them or unconstitutionality. These motives were Victorian mores discouraging sexual promiscuity, the high mortality rate for mothers undergoing abortions and the interest of the State to protect life. The first two reasons were not considered applicable because “the Texas statues are over broad in protecting it (social mores) since it fails to distinguish between married and unwed mothers” and that “abortion in early pregnancy, that is, prior to the end of the first trimester, although not without its risk, is now relatively safe.”

“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment 's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment 's reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman 's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” The justices felt that a woman 's right to privacy was more compelling than the right of states to regulate that right during the first and second trimester of pregnancy. There is no right to privacy explicitly guaranteed in the Constitution. However, the Supreme Court has long acknowledged some right to privacy. In earlier rulings about privacy, the Supreme Court seemed to connect the right to privacy to location, with a emphasis on a person’s home. This association stemmed from notions of property rights and centered on people’s personal