Roe: The History of a National Obsession

The leading US expert on abortion law charts the many meanings associated with Roe v.

Wade during its fifty-year historyWhat explains the insistent pull of Roe v.

Wade? Abortion law expert Mary Ziegler argues that the US Supreme Court decision, which decriminalized abortion in 1973 and was overturned in 2022, had a hold on us that was not simply the result of polarized abortion politics.

Rather, Roe took on meanings far beyond its original purpose of protecting the privacy of the doctor-patient relationship.

It forced us to confront questions about sexual violence, judicial activism and restraint, racial justice, religious liberty, the role of science in politics, and much more.In this history of what the Supreme Court’s best-liked decision has meant, Ziegler identifies the inconsistencies and unsettled issues in our abortion politics.