The American Nation A History of the United States, Combined Volume (14th Edition)

Conservative Counterattack 829

lawyer encouraged her to challenge the law. She con-
sented, using the pseudonym “Jane Roe,” and her
lawyer filed suit against Henry Wade, the Dallas
County prosecutor.
In 1973, after McCorvey had the baby, the U.S.
Supreme Court rendered a decision in Roe v. Wade.
Rejecting any “single” theory of life, the justices
maintained that a fetus did not have a “right to life”
until the final three months of pregnancy, when it
could likely survive without the mother. Until then,
the mother’s right to “privacy” took precedence.
The state could not prevent a woman from having
an abortion during the first six months of preg-
nancy. Most abortions were no longer illegal. A
major goal of the feminists had been achieved
almost overnight.
The Roe v. Wade decision resulted in a rapid
expansion of abortion facilities. From 1973 to 1980,
the number of abortions performed annually increased
from 745,000 to 1.5 million. Abortion had become

the nation’s most common surgical procedure. The

new feminist movement had prevailed on a number

of issues that would have been unthinkable a

decade earlier.

Roe v. Wade (January 22, 1973)at

http://www.myhistorylab.com

Conservative Counterattack

But theRoe v. Wadedecision also energized a grass-

roots conservative movement against abortion, often

supported by the Catholic Church, the Mormons,

and Protestant groups such as Falwell’s Moral

Majority (see Chapter 30, pp. 806–807). The right-

to-life movement endorsed the presidential campaigns

of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush, whose

Supreme Court appointments generally favored the

right-to-life position. In Webster v. Reproductive

Health Services (1989) and Planned Parenthood of

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A woman endorses Roe v. Wadein New York in 2003, the thirtieth anniversary of the ruling.