Key Issue

Abortion

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Since the Supreme Court's landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized a woman's right to an abortion in most cases, the nation's political, religious and social landscapes have been sharply split over abortion, and there are few indications that compromise is on the horizon.

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Activists both for and against abortion rally in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., in January 2005.

Polls indicate that the majority of Americans lie somewhere between the belief that all abortion constitutes the murder of an unborn child and the belief that abortion should always be a strictly personal decision to be made by individual pregnant women. Polls over recent decades have found that most Americans believe that abortion should be legal and available to women in some circumstances, but most of that group believes that some restrictions should be placed the availability of abortion.

Many antiabortion state and federal lawmakers have worked to test how far they could limit access to abortion under Roe v. Wade. In the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the Supreme Court upheld the "core holding" of Roe, but allowed restrictions to be placed on abortion rights as long as they did not impose an "undue burden" on women's right to abortion.

At the federal level, abortion rights have been at the center of a variety of debates. Every year since 1976, a legislative amendment has passed that restricts federal funds from going toward abortions under federally-subsidized insurance programs such as Medicaid. (Questions about abortion funding also played a major role in the debate over the health care reform bill that passed in 2010.) Under some presidents, the U.S. has also withheld all funding from international aid organizations that provide abortions or advice on obtaining abortions. In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a law outlawing the abortion procedure known as intact dilation and extraction (D&X), called "partial-birth abortion" by its opponents. The law, the first federal restriction on a particular abortion method since Roe v. Wade, was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2007.

State governments have passed a variety of antiabortion laws since 1973, and many of them have been challenged in the federal court system with varying degrees of success. States have restricted legal abortion to certain stages of pregnancy or have made it more difficult to obtain abortions later in pregnancy, sometimes engaging in debates over the timing of fetal viability. Some states have ruled that women must go through a waiting period, be given certain information by their doctors or undergo an ultrasound procedure before receiving an abortion. Like the federal government, some states have restricted state funding and resources from going toward abortions. Laws requiring the consent or notification of people other than the woman seeking an abortion have been another battle ground. In 1976, the Supreme Court voided two state laws that required that married women receive the consent of their husband before obtaining abortions. However, the court has generally upheld laws that require minors to notify or obtain the consent of their parents before obtaining an abortion, provided that the law includes a way for young women to seek an exception to the notification or consent requirement in court.

The tactics employed by antiabortion protesters outside of health care facilities that provide abortions have led to a series of measures imposed by Congress and state and federal courts barring protesters from blocking access to those facilities. In 1994 and 1997 rulings, the Supreme Court attempted to balance the right of patients and providers to enter clinics safely with the free speech rights of the protesters.

Since the 1990s, violence perpetrated by antiabortion extremists against the employees of facilities that provide abortions has killed several people and injured many more.

Since much abortion policy is ultimately settled in the federal judiciary, the composition of the Supreme Court attracts a great deal of attention from abortion rights supporters and opponents alike. When a candidate is nominated to become a Supreme Court justice, his or her philosophy about abortion issues and the Roe v. Wade precedent invariably become fodder for speculation.

For a list of major Supreme Court rulings from the period between Roe v. Wade and the court's 2007 D&X ruling, see Supreme Court: Major Abortion Decisions, 1973-2007.

Key Recent Stories:

2010: Abortion: Oklahoma Passes Restrictive Measures, Abortion: New Restrictions Become Law in Nebraska - The Nebraska and Oklahoma legislatures both passed strict abortion laws in April. Nebraska Governor Dave Heineman (R) April 13 signed two abortion bills into law. The more controversial law banned abortions that occurred 20 weeks after conception, the stage at which abortion opponents said fetuses could begin to feel pain. The law made exceptions in cases of medical emergency, if bringing the pregnancy to term would cause either the mother's death or "substantial and irreversible physical impairment of a major bodily function" in her. The Oklahoma legislature April 27 voted to override gubernatorial vetoes of two measures that would restrict abortions in the state. One of the laws required pregnant women seeking an abortion to have an ultrasound exam and then hear a detailed description of the fetus. There were no exceptions for the victims of rape or incest, and the law was considered among the most restrictive in the U.S. The other law prevented women who gave birth to a disabled child from suing a doctor who withheld information about a fetus's possible birth defects.

U.S. President Obama Signs Health Care Reform Into Law...House Votes Secured on Abortion Deal - U.S. President Barack Obama March 23 signed into law a historic, wide-ranging health care reform bill that would extend medical insurance to an estimated 32 million people at a cost of $938 billion over 10 years. The votes needed to secure the bill's passage were secured March 21 after negotiations between Obama, House Democratic leaders and a group of several antiabortion Democrats in the House, led by Representative Bart Stupak (Michigan), produced an agreement on the contentious issue of how the measure would treat abortion. The dissenting Democrats had expressed concern that the measure would allow federal money to be used to pay for abortions, which was barred under a federal law known as the Hyde Amendment.

2009: U.S. House Narrowly Passes Health Care Reform Bill; Abortion Deal Key to Securing Votes - The U.S. House November 7 voted, 220-215, to pass a wide-ranging overhaul of the U.S. health care system that would cost an estimated $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Prior to the floor vote, the House had voted, 240-194, to amend the bill to severely limit the abortion coverage available to consumers under the reform plan. The amendment barred those who received government subsidies from enrolling in plans that covered abortions, and prevented the public option from covering them. Abortion rights advocates sharply criticized the amendment, arguing that insurers were unlikely to craft a separate insurance policy that included abortion coverage for those people not taking federal subsidies.

Gunman Kills Kansas Abortion Doctor - George Tiller, a physician who performed late-term abortions, May 31 was shot and killed while serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas, the church that he and his wife attended. Tiller, who had been subject to antiabortion protests and harassment for more than 20 years, was the first abortion provider killed since Barnett Slepian of Buffalo, New York, was fatally shot in his home in 1998. A suspect in the killing, Scott Roeder, was arrested in Kansas later May 31.

Medical Research: Obama Lifts Stem Cell Funding Ban; Other Development - President Barack Obama March 9 signed an executive order lifting restrictions on federal funds for human embryonic stem cell research, reversing a policy that had been instituted in August 2001 by then-President George W. Bush. Embryonic stem cell creation relied on the destruction of a human embryo in order to harvest the cells, which could be coaxed in laboratories to grow into any type of cell found in the body. Antiabortion and other socially conservative activists maintained that the process of destroying a human embryo in order to harvest stem cells was tantamount to murder. Democrats had largely backed embryonic stem cell research, while the issue had divided Republicans.

Abortion: Obama Lifts Ban on International Funds - President Barack Obama January 23 ended a ban on the use of U.S. foreign aid funds by international family planning programs that provided abortions, or advice on obtaining one. Known both as the "Mexico City policy" and the "global gag rule," the ban had first been instituted in 1984 by President Ronald Reagan, but had been overturned and reinstated by subsequent presidents. Former President George W. Bush had reinstated the policy as one of his earliest acts in office in 2001, after it was reversed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, in 1993.

2008: Abortion: 'Conscience' Exemption Rules Set - The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) August 21 released new rules offering greater protection to health care providers who did not wish to provide abortions because of personal beliefs. The policies, set to take effect after a 30-day comment period, would also allow the halt of federal funding to hospitals, doctors' offices and other health care facilities if they did not establish provisions for employees who did not wish to participate in care they found objectionable due to personal, moral or religious beliefs.

Abortion: Virginia Late-Term Procedure Ban Overturned - A three judge panel of the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, May 20 ruled, 2-1, that a Virginia law prohibiting a controversial late-term abortion procedure, known as intact dilation and extraction, was unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court in April 2007 had upheld a federal law prohibiting intact dilation and extraction, labeled a "partial-birth" abortion by its opponents. That case was Gonzales v. Carhart. The appellate court in its ruling found that the Virginia law was more restrictive than the federal law, known as the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act.

Abortion: Decline in Procedure Reported - The Guttmacher Institute, a nonprofit research group, January 17 reported that the number of abortions among women aged 15-44 in the U.S. had fallen 8%, to 1.21 million in 2005, from 1.31 million in 2000, the last time the organization had conducted a survey. The 2005 figure was the lowest U.S. yearly abortion total since 1976.

2007: Human Stem Cells Created From Skin Cells - Two separate teams of scientists November 20 reported in online science journals that they had successfully created human stem cells from human skin cells, a technique that would allow scientists to avoid the controversial practice of creating stem cells from human embryos. The research was considered one of the most significant advances in stem cell research, and could potentially yield new treatments for a host of diseases and other ailments. Because stem cells were able to grow into any type of cell, the new technique would theoretically allow replacement organs or tissue to be grown from a patient's own body's cells.

Abortion: Louisiana Governor Signs Late-Term Procedure Ban - Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco (D) July 13 signed legislation banning a controversial type of late-term abortion, known as intact dilation and extraction. It was the first time a state had outlawed the procedure since the Supreme Court in April had upheld a 2003 federal law making the surgery illegal. The procedure was called "partial-birth" abortion by its opponents, because the fetus was first partially delivered.

Supreme Court, 5-4, Upholds Ban on Abortion Method; Decision Seen as Threat to 'Roe v. Wade', Supreme Court's Ruling in 'Gonzales v. Carhart': Excerpts - The Supreme Court April 18 voted, 5-4, to uphold a 2003 federal law prohibiting an abortion procedure, intact dilation and extraction, the first time the high court had supported a ban on a specific type of abortion. The procedure, labeled "partial-birth" abortion by its opponents, and was used under rare circumstances, usually late in the pregnancy term. It was also the first time the high court had upheld a law restricting abortions without an exception for the mother's health since the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case, which had established a woman's right to an abortion. However, the ruling did not overturn Roe v. Wade. The combined cases were Gonzales v. Carhart et al. and Gonzales v. Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

2006: Medicine and Health: FDA Approves Wider Plan B Sales - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) August 24 approved the over-the-counter sale of the controversial "morning-after" contraceptive pill, sold under the brand Plan B, to women 18 or older, ending years of political wrangling over the drug's availability. Those seeking the drug without a prescription would need to present proof of their age. Females younger than 18 would still need a prescription to obtain the drug.

Abortion: South Dakota Senate Bans Most Procedures - The South Dakota State Senate February 22 voted, 23-12, to make it a felony for any doctor to perform an abortion within the state, except to save a mother's life. The bill's sponsors said the legislation had been written to force the Supreme Court to reconsider its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision. The bill was sent back to the state's House of Representatives, which February 9 had voted, 47-22, to pass a similar measure with a slightly different wording. South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds (R) March 6 signed the bill into law. Abortion rights advocates immediately condemned the measure, and Planned Parenthood of South Dakota reiterated a pledge to contest the law.

Supreme Court: Abortion Protest Injunction Rejected - The Supreme Court February 28 ruled, 8-0, that courts could not maintain an injunction protecting abortion clinics against antiabortion protests using federal laws designed to combat racketeering and extortion. The case stemmed from a 1986 lawsuit by the National Organization for Women (NOW) and allied abortion clinics against protest groups that had attempted to physically block female patients from entering.

Supreme Court: 'Partial-Birth' Abortion Ban Case Accepted - The Supreme Court February 21 agreed to decide whether the 2003 Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, a federal law that criminalized abortion procedures in which the fetus was partially removed before being destroyed, was constitutional. The law had been struck down by three federal appeals courts, and had never been enforced. The case, Gonzales v. Carhart, would be closely watched as the first abortion-related appeal to come before the court since Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was confirmed in January.

Supreme Court: New Hampshire Abortion Law Returned to Lower Court - The Supreme Court January 18 decided unanimously to return a 2003 New Hampshire abortion regulation to the U.S. 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston, Massachusetts, for further consideration. The state law required girls under 18 to notify a parent or guardian at least 48 hours before obtaining an abortion. The appeals court had struck down the law because it provided no exception for girls who needed a prompt abortion to prevent serious harm to their health. The Supreme Court ruling in the case, Ayotte v. Planned Parenthood of Northern New England, instructed the 1st Circuit appeals court to determine whether the New Hampshire legislature would want the law to remain in place with a medical-emergency exception, or to be struck down in its entirety.

2005: Supreme Court: 1985 Alito Memo on 'Roe' Released - The National Archives November 30 released a 1985 memorandum written by Supreme Court nominee Samuel A. Alito Jr. in which he laid out a strategy for eroding and finally overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that had established women's constitutional right to abort pregnancies. The document, written while Alito was an assistant solicitor general in the administration of President Ronald Reagan, was one of the most controversial among the many files released in November and December as the Senate Judiciary Committee prepared for confirmation hearings set to begin January 9, 2006. Alito and the White House attempted to allay the concerns of Democratic and moderate Republican senators, stressing that the roles of a job applicant and a paid legal adviser for a conservative administration were distinct from that of an impartial judge.

Supreme Court Nominee Miers Struggles to Reassure Critics; Senators Press for More Information - Senate Judiciary Committee leaders October 19 wrote to Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers to request more substantive answers to a questionnaire they had prepared ahead of her confirmation hearings. Among the documents Miers had sent the committee October 18 with her initial questionnaire response, one drew heavy media coverage. It showed that in 1989 she had pledged to support a sweeping constitutional ban on abortion. Miers was also asked to revisit the senators' queries on any instances in which her allies had given private assurances to conservative interest groups as to how she would rule on major issues like abortion. Since her nomination was announced, the White House and outside Miers supporters had touted her personal religious beliefs and their link to the abortion issue, but publicly denied that such beliefs were a clear indication of how she would vote as a justice. The delicate balance between the two assertions had led to confusion and suspicion among both liberals and conservatives. Miers withdrew from her nomination October 27.

Senate Judiciary Committee Holds Hearings on Roberts's Nomination as U.S. Chief Justice; Panel Probes Views on Controversial Issues - The Senate Judiciary Committee September 12-15 held hearings on the nomination of John G. Roberts Jr. to become the next chief justice of the U.S. During questioning on abortion from Democrats and committee chairman Senator Arlen Specter (R, Pennsylvania), a supporter of abortion rights, Roberts, a Roman Catholic, said he believed that implicit in the Constitution was a right to privacy, the basis for the Supreme Court's ruling in the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade case establishing a woman's right to have an abortion. That differed from his writings as a legal adviser to Reagan, in which he described privacy as a "so-called right" not found in the Constitution. However, Roberts refused to answer direct questions as to whether he would vote to uphold Roe if confirmed as chief justice. Roberts was confirmed September 29.

Medicine and Health: FDA Delays 'Morning After' Pill Ruling; Other Development - The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) August 26 said it had postponed a decision on whether to allow the "morning after" emergency contraceptive pill Plan B to be sold without a prescription to women over 17 years old but only by prescription to those under 17. Plan B, a concentrated form of a conventional contraceptive drug, worked by preventing the implantation of a fertilized egg in the uterus. Antiabortion activists opposed easing access to the drug because, defining pregnancy as beginning at the moment of fertilization, they regarded the drug as a form of abortion.

Legislation: House Backs Abortion Parental Consent Bill - The House April 27 passed a bill that would make it a federal crime for a doctor or other adult to aid a woman 17 years old or younger in obtaining an abortion across state lines in a state where parental notification laws were less stringent. The bill, called the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act, passed, 270-157.

Antiabortion Militant Pleads Guilty to 1996 Olympics Bomb; Also Admits Clinic, Gay Club Blasts - Antiabortion militant Eric Rudolph, appearing in federal courts in Birmingham, Alabama, and Atlanta, Georgia, April 13 pleaded guilty to a series of four bombings that killed two people and injured more than 120 others between 1996 and 1998. The first of the blasts had killed one woman and injured 111 people at the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta. Two of the bombings Rudolph pleaded guilty to took place at two clinics that provided abortions.

2004: Abortion: News in Brief - The U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Louisiana, September 14 rejected a motion to reconsider Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's 1973 landmark decision that established the federal right to have an abortion. The lawsuit to overturn Roe had been filed against the Dallas County, Texas, district attorney's office on behalf of Norma McCorvey, who under the pseudonym Jane Roe had been the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade.

Abortion: 'Partial-Birth' Ban Ruled Unconstitutional - Federal judges in New York City and Lincoln, Nebraska, August 26 and September 8, respectively, rejected as unconstitutional a 2003 law that outlawed a late-term abortion procedure called "partial-birth" abortion by its opponents. The rulings, in two separate lawsuits, agreed with a June decision by Judge Phyllis Hamilton of U.S. District Court in San Francisco, California, who had similarly rejected the law in a third parallel suit.

Abortion: Huge March Protests Bush Policies - In April, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators gathered in Washington, D.C. for a "March for Women's Lives," a show of strength by abortion rights advocates and a protest against the reproductive rights policies of President Bush. The march, which organizers said attracted 1.15 million participants and independent estimates put closer to 800,000, was the largest abortion-rights demonstration since an April 1992 rally that had drawn at least 500,000 participants.

Senate Clears, Bush Signs Fetal Protection Bill, Legislation: House Passes Fetal Protection Bill - In April, President Bush signed into law a measure that made harming or killing the fetus, or "unborn child," of a pregnant woman a separate federal crime. Abortion rights advocates were concerned about the law, arguing that defining a fetus as a separate legal entity was an attack on abortion rights. The law, cleared by Congress in March, permitted legal abortions in which the woman consented.

2003: Abortion: Bush Signs 'Partial-Birth' Ban, Legislation: Congress Bans Abortion Procedure, Legislation: House Passes Late-Term Abortion Ban, Legislation: Senate Passes Late-Term Abortion Ban - In March, the Senate passed, 64-33, legislation banning a late-term abortion procedure that opponents called "partial-birth abortion." In June, the House passed a similar bill by a 282-139 vote. President Bush said he would sign the bill after it emerged from House-Senate conference. Congress gave final approval to the measure in October, and Bush signed it on November 5. It was the first federal ban on an abortion procedure since 1973, when the Supreme Court issued the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling. Federal judges quickly issued injunctions that temporarily nullified the law's effect for a significant number of abortion providers.

Supreme Court: Abortion Protesters' RICO Conviction Voided - In February, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, 8-1, that antiabortion protesters who blockaded abortion clinics could not be prosecuted for extortion under the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), a federal law designed to fight organized crime. The court overturned a 1998 judgment against the protesters in two related cases, Scheidler v. National Organization for Women (NOW) and Operation Rescue v. NOW.

Abortion: Decline Seen, as Ruling Anniversary Marked - The Alan Guttmacher Institute released a report in January indicating that the U.S. abortion rate in 2000 was the lowest it had been since 1974. The Guttmacher report was prepared in time for the 30th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, which was marked by protests and rallies by opponents and proponents of the landmark January 22, 1973 ruling.

2002: Supreme Court: Court to Revisit Abortion-Protest RICO Case - In April, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to consider whether lawsuits could be filed by private parties under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) to stop protests against their businesses. Two consolidated cases had been brought by the National Organization for Women (NOW) and a group of abortion providers who wanted to use RICO against antiabortion groups that stage protests outside abortion clinics.

2001: U.S. President Bush Backs Limited Embryonic Stem-Cell Research; Compromise Draws Mixed Reactions - President Bush in August said he would permit federal funding of limited research on human embryonic stem cells. Many scientists believed that stem cells, derived from five-day-old human embryos, could be used to find treatments for diseases. However, some antiabortion advocates opposed the research because it killed the embryos. Bush said he would allow federal funding only for stem-cell lines (stem cells continually grown in culture) that already existed.

Crime: 1998 Abortion Murder Suspect Held in France - In March, a fugitive suspect charged in the 1998 slaying of a Buffalo, New York doctor who performed abortions was arrested in France. The capture capped a two-and-a-half-year manhunt that had extended across six countries.

Abortion: Bush's Overseas Aid Policy Challenged - A bipartisan coalition of legislators in the House and Senate in February introduced bills to overturn President George W. Bush's ban on federal aid to international family planning organizations that used their own money to perform abortions or advocate abortion rights. Bush had reinstituted that ban, known as the "Mexico City policy," by executive order in January.

2000: FDA Approves RU-486 Abortion Pill; Drug to Be Available in a Month - The Food and Drug Administration in September approved U.S. use of the abortion pill RU-486, also known as mifepristone, which had been used in Europe for over a decade. The drug enabled a woman to terminate a pregnancy within seven weeks from her last menstrual period, without the need for a surgical abortion. Approval had been delayed in the U.S. because of political opposition to abortion.

Nebraska's Ban on 'Partial-Birth' Abortion Struck Down - The Supreme Court in June ruled, 5-4, to strike down a Nebraska law that banned so-called "partial-birth" abortions. The ruling was the high court's first major decision on abortion in eight years.

Abortion: CDC Reports Lowest Rate Since 1975; Other Developments - The abortion rate in the U.S. in 1997 was the lowest it had been since 1975, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in January. The overall number of legal abortions was the lowest it had been since 1978.

1999: Abortion: Senate Again Outlaws Late-Term Method - The Senate in October voted, 63-34, to pass a measure outlawing a controversial procedure known by its critics as "partial-birth abortion." The Senate vote, as in previous years, was short of the two-thirds majority needed to override a presidential veto.

Abortion: Antiabortion Web Site Loses Case - A civil jury in U.S. District Court in Portland, Oregon found that the creators of an Internet site that featured "wanted" posters listing the names of abortion providers had made what amounted to a "hit list" that threatened deadly violence.

1998: Crime: Sniper Kills New York Abortion Doctor - An unidentified sniper shot and killed an obstetrician in New York State who performed abortions. Investigators said that the killing appeared to be part of a pattern of antiabortion shootings by snipers in western New York and Canada.

Supreme Court: Late-Term Abortion Case Rejected - The Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that struck down an Ohio statute banning a late-term abortion method known as intact dilation and extraction (IDE). Opponents of the procedure called it "partial-birth abortion."

Supreme Court Backs Abortion-Clinic Buffer Zones - The justice ruled that court-ordered buffer zones that banned antiabortion protesters from staging demonstrations within a certain distance of abortion clinic entrances did not violate the protesters' free-speech rights.

Crime: Six Injured in Atlanta Abortion Clinic Blast - The Atlanta attack was one of two that coincided with the anniversary of the Supreme Court's 1973 decision Roe v. Wade, which gave constitutional protection to abortion rights. The article also cites statistics showing that attacks on clinics nationwide were down in 1996 from 1995 levels.

1996: Other U.S. News: Clinic Killer Found Dead in Cell - John Salvi 3rd, who had been convicted of murdering two receptionists during a December 1994 shooting spree at two abortion clinics in Brookline, Massachusetts apparently committed suicide in prison.

Veto of Late-Term Method Ban Upheld - The Senate failed to override President Clinton's veto of a bill that would have banned a relatively seldom-used method of ending pregnancies in their late stages. The bill represented the first attempt by Congress to ban an abortion procedure since Roe v. Wade.

FDA Panel Urges RU-486 Drug Approval - A panel of advisers to the Food and Drug Administration ruled that the abortion drug RU-486 was a safe and effective alternative to surgical abortion.

Presidential Campaign: Dole Supports New Compromise on Abortion - Republican presidential nominee Robert J. Dole backed down from his earlier support for a plank in the GOP platform expressing toleration for the views of abortion-rights supporters and proposed a compromise. The GOP eventually retained platform language calling for a ban on all abortions.

1994: Legislation: Abortion-Clinic Protection Bill Signed - President Clinton signed a bill designed to protect abortion clinics and their patients and staff from attacks, blockades and acts of intimidation by opponents of abortion.

1992: Key Supreme Court Decisions on Abortion (1973-1992) - Key information on the seven most important decisions on abortion from 1973 to 1992 -- from Roe v. Wade to Planned Parenthood v. Casey -- with links to the original Facts On File stories.