[News Terms] The 'Roe v. Wade Decision' That Became a U.S. Presidential Election Issue

The 'Roe vs. Wade' ruling is regarded as the most monumental decision in the history of abortion legalization.

It originated from the case in which Norma McCorvey, living in Dallas, Texas in 1969, filed a lawsuit to invalidate Texas's abortion ban after becoming pregnant with her third child, and in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled 7 to 2 that the law was unconstitutional.

The day after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn the precedent protecting abortion rights, on June 25 last year (local time), abortion rights advocates held a protest in front of the state capitol in Indianapolis, Indiana, holding signs that read "The Supreme Court (SCOTUS) is a disgrace."
[Photo by Indianapolis AP/ Yonhap News]

At that time, Texas law prohibited abortion except in exceptional cases such as pregnancy resulting from rape or incest, or when the mother's health was at risk. To protect McCorvey's identity, her lawyers filed the lawsuit under the pseudonym 'Jane Roe' against Henry Wade, the Dallas district attorney at the time. This is how the name 'Roe vs. Wade' was created.

The federal Supreme Court then ruled that a woman's right to abortion fell under the right to privacy guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, deciding 7 to 2 that the abortion ban was unconstitutional. The Court sided with McCorvey, stating that women have the right to make decisions themselves before the fetus can survive outside the womb, that is, before six months of pregnancy.

However, although McCorvey won the lawsuit, it took four years from the lawsuit to the ruling, during which she could not exercise her abortion rights, and ironically, she later became an anti-abortion activist, expressing regret over the case.

On June 24 last year (local time), the federal Supreme Court overturned the 'Roe vs. Wade' ruling in the 'Dobbs vs. Jackson' case, which dealt with the constitutionality of a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, leaving the decision on whether to maintain abortion rights to each state, causing renewed turmoil in American society.

As the 2024 U.S. presidential election race intensifies, American society is fiercely clashing over women's right to self-determination (abortion rights), with values of individual freedom and respect for life, ideologies of progressivism and conservatism, and religious beliefs all colliding. The conflict between the Democratic Party and women's groups advocating for abortion and the Republican Party and religious organizations opposing it continues.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.