Myth: Roe v. Wade said the Constitution includes a right to abortion.
Fact: Yet even legal commentators who support legal abortion have said Roe is not good constitutional law.
Roe v. Wade is "a very bad decision.…because it is not constitutional law and gives almost no sense of an obligation to try to be."1
- John Hart Ely, Yale law professor
"As a matter of constitutional interpretation and judicial method, Roe borders on the indefensible…. [It is] one of the most intellectually suspect constitutional decisions of the modern era."2
- Edward Lazarus, former clerk to Justice Blackmun (who authored Roe)
"Since its inception Roe has had a deep legitimacy problem, stemming from its weakness as a legal opinion."3
- Benjamin Wittes, Washington Post legal affairs editorial writer
"One of the most curious things about Roe is that, behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found."4
- Laurence Tribe, Harvard law professor
1 "The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade," 82 Yale L.J. 920-49 (1973) at 947.
2 "The Lingering Problems with Roe v. Wade," FindLaw's Writ, Oct. 3, 2002, http://writ.news.findlaw.com/lazarus/20021003.html.
3 "Letting Go of Roe," The Atlantic Monthly, January/February 2005, p. 48.
4 "Toward a Model of Roles in the Due Process of Life and Law," 87 Harv.L.Rev. 1 (1973) at 7.
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Secretariat for Pro-Life Activities
United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3211 4th Street, N.E., Washington, DC 20017-1194 (202) 541-3070
http://www.usccb.org/prolife/realitycheck4.htm