美国宪法史上的重大事件——Roe V.Wade（罗伊诉韦德案）
（Roe V.Wade,410 U.S.113,1973）
In 1969,a 25-year-old pregnant single woman, Norma McCorvey under the pudonym（'(p)sju:dənim 男人睡觉流口水是肾虚吗n. 匿名,）机械设备租赁合同 "Jane Roe", brought a class action challenging the constitutionality of the Texas（ 'teksəs）建筑地基 criminal abortion laws, which proscribe procuring or attempting an abortion except on medical advice for the purpo of saving the mother's life.
Ms McCorvey first filed the ca in 1969. She was pregnant with her third child and claimed that she had been raped. But the ca was rejected and she was forced to give birth.
However, in 1973 her appeal made it to the US Supreme Court where she was reprented by Sarah Weddington, a Dallas attorney.
State criminal abortion laws, like tho involved here, that except from criminality only a life-saving procedure on the mother's behalf without regard to the stage of her pregnancy and o
ther interests involved violate the Due Process Clau of the Fourteenth Amendment, which protects against state action the right to privacy, including a woman's qualified right to terminate her pregnancy. Though the State cannot override （不顾，无视）that right, it has legitimate interests in protecting both the pregnant woman's health and the potentiality of human life, each of which interests grows and reaches a "compelling" point at various stages of the woman's approach to term.
Conclusion
The court issued its decision on January 22, 1973, with a 7-to-2 majority vote in favor of McCorvey. Burger and Douglas' concurring opinion and White's disnting opinion were issued parately, in the companion ca of Doe v. Bolton.
By a vote of ven to two, the court justices ruled that governments lacked the power to prohibit abortions.
The court's judgement was bad on the decision that a woman's right to terminate her pr
egnancy came under the freedom of personal choice in family matters as protected by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution. The decision gave a woman total autonomy over the pregnancy during the first trimester and defined different levels of state interest for the cond and third trimesters. As a result, the laws of 46 states were affected by the Court's ruling.
Reason
Brief summary
The opinion of the Roe Court, written by Justice Harry Blackmun, declined to adopt the district court's Ninth Amendment rationale, and instead asrted that the "right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment's concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment's rervation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman's decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. Douglas, in his concurring opinion from the companion ca Doe v. Bolton, stated more emphatically that, "The Nint
h Amendment obviously does not create federally enforceable rights." Thus, the Roe majority rested its opinion squarely on the Constitution's due process clau.
the Court explained that the trimester of pregnancy is relevant to the weight of the factors in this balancing test. Thus, during the first trimester, the state cannot restrict a woman's right to an abortion in any way; during the cond trimester, the state may only regulate the abortion procedure "in ways that are reasonably related to maternal health"; during the third trimester, the state can choo to restrict or proscribe abortion as it es fit when the fetus is viable ("except where it is necessary, in appropriate medical judgment, for the prervation of the life or health of the mother").
summarizes the Court's legal conclusions, explaining that a Texas-style criminal statute was unconstitutional, and recapitulating the permissible extent of state regulation in each of the three Constitutionally relevant time periods of pregnancy (i.e. divided by "approximately the end of the first trimester" and "the stage subquent to viability").
Disnts
From this historical record, Rehnquist concluded that, "There apparently was no question concerning the validity of this provision or of any of the other state statutes when the Fourteenth Amendment was adopted." Therefore, in his view, "the drafters did not intend to have the Fourteenth Amendment withdraw from the States the power to legislate with respect to this matter."
Trimester system
The ca created the "trimester" system that:
∙ gives American women an absolute right to an abortion in the first three months of pregnancy手指头发麻
∙ allows some government regulation in the cond trimester of pregnancy
∙ declares that states may restrict or ban abortions in the last trimester as the foetus nears the point where it could live outside the womb; in this trimester a woman can obtain an abortion despite any legal ban only if doctors certify it is necessary to save her life or h
ealth.
【金盆洗手图片大全1】事件概要
1969年，一位化名为杰内•罗伊的妇女和其他人一起向德克萨斯州限制堕胎的法令提出了挑战。该法令规定，除非因为维护孕妇的生命，州内一律禁止妇女实施堕胎手术。罗伊主张：德州限制堕胎的法令剥夺了她在妊娠中的选择权，因为她既无钱到可以合法堕胎的州进行手术，又不能中止妊娠，所以，分娩之后不得不将孩子交给了不知身份的人收养。德州限制堕胎的法令使得她无法自主地决定在什么时间、以什么方式、为何种理由而终止妊娠。被告德州政府在诉讼中辩称：生命始于受孕而存续于整个妊娠期间，所以，怀孕妇女在整个妊娠过程中，都存在着保护胎儿生命这一国家利益。宪法中所称的“人”包括胎儿在内，非经正当法律程序而剥夺胎儿生命是联邦宪法修正案第14条所禁止的行为之列。
该案最终上诉到联邦最高法院。1973年，联邦最高法院以6：3的多数意见裁定，德州限制堕胎的法令过于宽泛地限制了孕妇在妊娠过程中的选择权，侵犯了联邦宪法修正案第14条所保护的个人自由，构成违宪。
【2】判决内容
美国联邦最高法院以布莱克门大法官为代表的多数意见支持了罗伊的诉讼请求。
实践活动心得体会
一起变老 布莱克门大法官在判决中认为，虽然联邦宪法没有明文规定公民享有隐私权，但是无论是权利法案提供的特定保障，还是联邦宪法修正案第9条所确认的“剩余权利原则”，或者是联邦宪法第14条修正案确认的未经正当程序不可剥夺的“自由”，都为公民隐私权的保护提供了广阔的宪法空间，而“隐私权的广泛性足以涵盖妇女自行决定是否终止妊娠的权利”。只有个人权利才是宪法所保护的基本权利和法定自由。司法对基本权利的保护应当遵循下列规则：限制基本权利的法律违反宪法，除非限制是为了维护某种“不可抗拒的国家利益”，而限制措施又没有超出实现立法目的所必须的限度。在罗伊一案中，首先应当承认妇女堕胎权是宪法所保护的个人隐私权。但是，也应当看到，决定堕胎与否的个人隐私并不是绝对自由的。在妊娠期间，存在着两种“重要和正当”的国家利益：一是保护孕妇健康；二是保护潜在生命，政府得在同时考虑上述两种国家利益的基础上制定限制堕胎的法律。这两种利益在妊娠期间同时存在，各自在某一个时间点内成为不可抗拒的国家利益。在罗伊案件中，德州法律对堕胎作了过于宽泛的限制，即没有区分妊娠早期和晚期的堕胎，只是将抢救母亲生命作为允许堕胎的唯一理由，而排除了堕胎所涉及到的其他利益，因此，德州法律违反了宪法修正案第糖尿病水果14条正当程序条款。
布莱克门认为，在考虑保护孕妇健康与保护胎儿生命两种不同的国家利益时，存活的可能
性是划分潜在生命的国家利益和妇女选择权的一条基本界限。所谓存活的可能性就是指胎儿能够脱离母体、借助人工辅助而成为生命。为了在这两种利益之间划分一个明确的界限，布莱克门等多数法官将妊娠期分为三个阶段：第一阶段在妊娠头3个月，堕胎危险性小于正常分娩，政府没有必要为保护孕妇健康而限制堕胎，孕妇可以与医生商量之后，自行决定是否堕胎，不受法令限制；第二阶段是在妊娠头3个月之后，胎儿具有在母体外存活的可能性之前，堕胎危险性增加，政府得以保护孕妇健康为目的限制堕胎，但是，限制手段只能以孕妇健康为必要；第三阶段是在胎儿具有脱离母体存活的可能性（一般第24周至第28周）之后，政府可以为了保护潜在生命或者孕妇健康而采取包括禁止堕胎在内的措施，除非堕胎是为了挽救孕妇的生命。
伦奎斯特法官在此案中代表少数意见认为，罗伊案例由于与婚姻无关，因此，它不涉及到隐私权问题。从36个州有关堕胎的立法史来看，妇女的堕胎权利一直受到不同程度的限制，不可能是一项“基本权利”，因此，不应当受到任何特殊保护。
