Mr. Justice Blackmun delivered the opinion of the Court...
This Texas federal appeal and its Georgia companion, Doe v. Bolton, post, p. 179,
present constitutional challenges to state criminal abortion legislation. The Texas statutes under
attack here are typical of those that have been in effect in many States for approximately a
century. The Georgia statutes, in contrast, have a modern cast and are a legislative product that,
to an extent at least, obviously reflects the influences of recent attitudinal change, of advancing
medical knowledge and techniques, and of new thinking about an old issue.
We forthwith acknowledge our awareness of the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion
controversy, of the vigourous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and
seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires. One's philosophy, one's experiences, one's
exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life
and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all
likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion...
The Texas statutes that concern us here are Arts. 1191-1194 and 1196 of the State's Penal Code.
These make it a crime to "procure an abortion," as therein defined, or to attempt one, except with
respect to "an abortion procured or attempted by medical advice for the purpose of saving the life
of the mother." Similar statutes are in existence in a majority of the States.
Texas first enacted a criminal abortion statute in 1854. Texas Laws 1854, c. 49, Sec. 1, set forth
in 3 H. Gammel, Laws of Texas 1502 (1898). This was soon modified into language that has
remained substantially unchanged to the present time...
Jane Roe, a single woman who was residing in Dallas County, Texas, instituted this federal action
in March 1970 against the District Attorney of the county. She sought a declaratory judgment that
the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face, and an injunction
restraining the defendant from enforcing the statutes.
Roe alleged that she was unmarried and pregnant; that she wished to terminate her pregnancy by
an abortion "performed by a competent, licensed physician, under safe, clinical conditions"; that
she was unable to get a "legal" abortion in Texas because her life did not appear to be threatened
by the continuation of her pregnancy; and that she could not afford to travel to another
jurisdiction in order to secure a legal abortion under safe conditions. She claimed that the Texas
statutes were unconstitutionally vague and that they abridged her right of personal privacy,
protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. By an amendment to
her complaint Roe purported to sue "on behalf of herself and all other women" similarly
situated...
We are next confronted with issues of justiciability, standing, and abstention. Have Roe and the
Does established that "personal stake in the outcome of the controversy," Baker v.
Carr, 369 U.S. 186, 204 (1962), that insures that "the dispute sought to be adjudicated
will be presented in an adversary context and in a form historically viewed as capable of judicial
resolution,"...
The usual rule in federal cases is that an actual controversy must exist at stages of appellate or
certiorari review, and not simply at the date the action is initiated...
But when, as here, pregnancy is a significant fact in the litigation, the normal 266-day human
gestation period is so short that the pregnancy will come to term before the usual appellate
process is complete. If that termination makes a case moot, pregnancy litigation seldom will
survive much beyond the trial stage, and appellate review will be effectively denied. Our law
should not be that rigid...
We, therefore, agree with the District Court that Jane Roe had standing to undertake this
litigation, that she presented a justiciable controversy, and that the termination of her 1970
pregnancy has not rendered her case moot...
The principal thrust of appellant's attack on the Texas statutes is that they improperly invade a
right, said to be possessed by the pregnant woman, to choose to terminate her pregnancy.
Appellant would discover this right in the concept of personal "liberty" embodied in the
Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause; or in personal, marital, familial, and sexual privacy
said to be protected by the Bill of Rights or its penumbras, see Griswold v.
Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479 (1965); Eisenstadt v. Baird, 405 U.S. 438
(1972);... Before addressing this claim, we feel it desirable briefly to survey,... the history of
abortion, for such insight as that history may afford us, and then to examine the state purposes
and interests behind the criminal abortion laws...
It perhaps is not generally appreciated that the restrictive criminal abortion laws in effect in a
majority of States today are of relatively recent vintage. Those laws, generally proscribing
abortion or its attempt at any time during pregnancy except when necessary to preserve the
pregnant woman's life, are not of ancient or even of common-law origin. Instead, they derive from
statutory changes effected, for the most part, in the latter half of the 19th century...
It is undisputed that at common law, abortion performed before "quickening" -- the first
recognizable movement of the fetus in utero, appearing usually from the 16th to the 18th week of
pregnancy -- was not an indictable offense...
In this country, the law in effect in all but a few States until mid-19th century was the pre-existing
English common law. Connecticut, the first State to enact abortion legislation, adopted in 1821
that part of Lord Ellenborough's Act that related to a woman "quick with child." The death
penalty was not imposed. Abortion before quickening was made a crime in that State only in
1860...
Gradually, in the middle and late 19th century the quickening distinction disappeared from the
statutory law of most States and the degree of the offense and the penalties were increased. By
the end of the 1950's, a large majority of the jurisdictions banned abortion, however and whenever
performed, unless done to save or preserve the life of the mother...
It is thus apparent that at common law, at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and
throughout the major portion of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than
under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a
substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. At least
with respect to the early stage of pregnancy, and very possibly without such a limitation, the
opportunity to make this choice was present in this country well into the 19th century. Even later,
the law continued for some time to treat less punitively an abortion procured in early
pregnancy...
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In a line of decisions, however,
going back perhaps as far as Union Pacific R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U.S. 250, 251
(1891), the Court has recognized that a right of personal privacy, or a guarantee of certain areas
or zones of privacy, does exist under the Constitution. In varying contexts, the Court or individual
Justices have, indeed, found at least the roots of that right in the First Amendment, Stanley
v. Georgia, 394, U.S. 557, 564 (1969); in the Fourth and Fifth Amendments,...in the
penumbras of the Bill of Rights,...in the Ninth Amendment,...or in the concept of liberty
guaranteed by the first section of the Fourteenth Amendment,... These decisions make it clear that
only personal rights that can be deemed "fundamental" or "implicit in the concept of ordered
liberty,"...are included in this guarantee of personal privacy. They also make it clear that the right
has some extension to activities relating to marriage,...procreation,...contraception,...family
relationships,...and child rearing and education,...
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 detriment that the State would
impose upon the pregnant woman by denying this choice altogether is apparent. Specific and
direct harm medically diagnosable even in early pregnancy may be involved. Maternity, or
additional offspring, may force upon the woman a distressful life and future. Psychological harm
may be imminent. Mental and physical health may be taxed by child care. There is also the
distress, for all concerned, associated with the unwanted child, and there is the problem of
bringing a child into a family already unable, psychologically and otherwise, to care for it. In other
cases, as in this one, the additional difficulties and continuing stigma of unwed motherhood may
be involved. All these are factors the woman and her responsible physician necessarily will
consider in consultation.
On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is
absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way,
and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that
Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong
enough to support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The
Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in
areas protected by that right is appropriated. As noted above, a State may properly assert
important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting
potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently
compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right
involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim
asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears
a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The
Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v.
Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S.
200 (1927) (sterilization).
We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that
this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in
regulation...
...the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn. This is
in accord with the results reached in those few cases where the issue has been squarely
presented...
The pregnant woman cannot be isolated in her privacy. She carries an embryo and, later, a fetus, if
one accepts the medical definitions of the developing young in the human uterus ... it is reasonable
and appropriate for a State to decide that at some point in time another interest, that of health of
the mother or that of potential human life, becomes significantly involved. The woman's privacy is
no longer sole and any right of privacy she possesses must be measured accordingly.
Texas urges that, apart from the Fourteenth Amendment, life begins at conception and is present
throughout pregnancy, and that, therefore, the State has a compelling interest in protecting that
life from and after conception. We need not resolve the difficult question of when life begins.
When those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology are unable
to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point in the development of man's knowledge, is
not in a position to speculate as to the answer.
It should be sufficient to note briefly the wide divergence of thinking on this most sensitive and
difficult question. There has always been strong support for the view that life does not begin until
live birth...
In areas other than criminal abortion, the law has been reluctant to endorse any theory that life, as
we recognize it, begins before live birth or to accord legal rights to the unborn except in narrowly
defined situations and except when the rights are contingent upon live birth. For example, the
traditional rule of tort law denied recovery for prenatal injuries even though the child was born
alive....
In view of all this, we do not agree that, by adopting one theory of life, Texas may override the
rights of the pregnant woman that are at stake. We repeat, however, that the State does have an
important and legitimate interest in preserving and protecting the health of the pregnant woman,
whether she be a resident of the State or a nonresident who seeks medical consultation and
treatment there, and that it has still another important and legitimate interest in protecting the
potentiality of human life. These interests are separate and distinct. Each grows in substantiality as
the woman approaches term and, at a point during pregnancy, each becomes "compelling."
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in the health of the mother, the
"compelling" point, in the light of present medical knowledge, is at approximately the end of the
first trimester. This is so because of the now-established medical fact, referred to above at 149,
that until the end of the first trimester mortality in abortion may be less than mortality in normal
childbirth. It follows that, from and after this point, a State may regulate the abortion procedure
to the extent that the regulation reasonably relates to the preservation and protection of maternal
health. Examples of permissible state regulation in this area are requirements as to the
qualifications of the person who is to perform the abortion; as to the licensure of that person; as
to the facility in which the procedure is to be performed, that is, whether it must be a hospital or
may be a clinic or some other place of less-than-hospital status; as to the licensing of the facility;
and the like.
This means, on the other hand, that, for the period of pregnancy prior to this "compelling" point,
the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by
the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient's pregnancy should be terminated. If that
decision is reached, the judgment may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the
State.
With respect to the State's important and legitimate interest in potential life, the "compelling"
point is at viability. This is so because the fetus then presumably has the capability of meaningful
life outside the mother's womb. State regulation protective of fetal life after viability thus has both
logical and biological justifications. If the State is interested in protecting fetal life after viability, it
may go so far as to proscribe abortion during that period, except when it is necessary to preserve
the life or health of the mother...
A state criminal abortion statute of the current Texas type, that excepts from criminality only a
life-saving procedure on behalf of the mother, without regard to pregnancy stage and without
recognition of the other interests involved, is violative of the Due Process Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment.
...For the stage prior to approximately the end of the first trimester, the abortion decision and its
effectuation must be left to the medical judgment of the pregnant woman's attending
physician.
...For the stage subsequent to approximately the end of the first trimester, the State, in promoting
its interest in the health of the mother, may, if it chooses, regulate the abortion procedure in ways
that are reasonably related to maternal health.
...For the stage subsequent to viability, the State in promoting its interest in the potentiality of
human life may, if it chooses, regulate, and even proscribe, abortion except where it is necessary,
in appropriate medical judgment, for the preservation of the life or health of the mother...
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