Why Is Roe v. Wade such a Landmark?

[Jinx]

I was just wondering if Roe v. Wade is always thrown up as such a landmark case because the decision hasn’t been undone by cases since (I WAG)? We study these cases in school, and I understand their importance, but only recently the thought hit me that such monumental cases could always have been reversed by now, I concluded. So, is my WAG correct? Is that the root of the big deal about Roe v. Wade turning 30 (IIRC)? Never really gave court decisions much thought… - Jinx

[Ice_Wolf]

WAG – I’d say it’s a landmark still because it hasn’t been overturned to date, yes, and because it provides a rallying point for both sides of the abortion issue.

[Boyo_Jim]

It’s right up there with Brown v. Board of Education because of two things:

1. They overturned existing law and/or social practices in many (perhaps most) states and local communities.
2. They reached into areas where religious/moral conscience plays a significant role for many people. (Yes, believe it or not, many people thought racial segregation was ordained by God.)

[Nametag]

All of the above, plus…

Roe v. Wade also nailed down the tricky issue of the right to privacy. The decision in Roe v. Wade set forth certain rights that were not enumerated in the Constitution, but were implied (“in the penumbra” of the Bill of Rights). There were concurring opinions by other justices who used different arguments, as well as later refinements, but Roe is the base for a whole new set of rights having nothing to do with reproduction.

[Otto]

Actually, I believe [^[group+citemenu!3A]^[level+case+citation!3A]^[group+notes!3A]/doc/{@1}/hit_headings/words=4/hits_only?]Griswold v Connecticutt 381 U.S. 479 (1965)](http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[group+381+u!2Es!2E+479!3A) is where the “penubra” reasoning was first laid out in the context of reproductive rights (and possibly the first use of the term “penumbra”). Quoting the relevant portion from the marority opinion:

In other words, the First Amendment has a penumbra where privacy is protected from governmental intrusion. In like context, we have protected forms of “association” that are not political in the customary sense, but pertain to the social, legal, and economic benefit of the members. NAACP v. Button, 371 U.S. 415 , 430-431 . In Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners, 353 U.S. 232, we held it not permissible to bar a lawyer from practice because he had once been a member of the Communist Party. The man’s “association with that Party” was not shown to be “anything more than a political faith in a political party” (id. at 244), and was not action of a kind proving bad moral character. Id. at 245-246.

Those cases involved more than the “right of assembly” – a right that extends to all, irrespective of their race or ideology. De Jonge v. Oregon, 299 U.S. 353 . The right of “association,” like the right of belief (Board of Education v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624 ), is more than the right to attend a meeting; it includes the right to express one’s attitudes or philosophies by membership in a group or by affiliation with it or by other lawful means. Association in that context is a form of expression of opinion, and, while it is not expressly included in the First Amendment, its existence is necessary in making the express guarantees fully meaningful. [p*484]

The foregoing cases suggest that specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance. See Poe v. Ullman, 367 U.S. 497, 516-522 (dissenting opinion). Various guarantees create zones of privacy. The right of association contained in the penumbra of the First Amendment is one, as we have seen. The Third Amendment, in its prohibition against the quartering of soldiers “in any house” in time of peace without the consent of the owner, is another facet of that privacy. The Fourth Amendment explicitly affirms the “right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” The Fifth Amendment, in its Self-Incrimination Clause, enables the citizen to create a zone of privacy which government may not force him to surrender to his detriment. The Ninth Amendment provides: “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The Fourth and Fifth Amendments were described in Boyd v. United States, 116 U.S. 616, 630, as protection against all governmental invasions “of the sanctity of a man’s home and the privacies of life.” [li] We recently referred [p*485] in Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U.S. 643 , 656 , to the Fourth Amendment as creating a “right to privacy, no less important than any other right carefully an particularly reserved to the people.” See Beaney, The Constitutional Right to Privacy, 1962 Sup.Ct.Rev. 212; Griswold, The Right to be Let Alone, 55 Nw.U.L.Rev. 216 (1960).[/li]
We have had many controversies over these penumbral rights of “privacy and repose.” See, e.g., Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622, 626, 644; Public Utilities Comm’n v. Pollak, 343 U.S. 451; Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167; Lanza v. New York, 370 U.S. 139; Frank v. Maryland, 359 U.S. 360; Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535 , 541 . These cases bear witness that the right of privacy which presses for recognition here is a legitimate one.

The present case, then, concerns a relationship lying within the zone of privacy created by several fundamental constitutional guarantees.

Roe built on the foundation of Griswold but did not see the initiation of the “penumbra” theory.