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Casebook Read Credits
Gender, Sexuality, and the Law
Section 17
42 minutes

The Making and Transformation of Abortion Rights

Mary R Ziegler

Often, those studying conflicts over abortion begin with Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), the 1973 decision recognizing a right to abortion. In this unit, we will push beyond the conventional wisdom and study the forces that brought about the Roe decision. We will explore the rise and contested history of the early anti-abortion or pro-life movement. We will examine the ways that abortion became a key issue in U.S. party politics in the early 1970s before Richard Nixon's fall from grace. We will consider the constituencies that fought to legalize abortion--population controllers, physicians and public health experts, and feminists. And we will make sense of the surprising details of the Roe decision itself.

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