stitution guaranteed privacy rights that were broad enough to protect a woman's choice to have an abortion because the district court refused to forbid future prosecutions for abortion. Roe and her attorneys appealed to the US Supreme Court. Wade also appealed the decision.The Supreme Court heard arguments for Roe v. Wade in December 1971. After the justices intensely debated the issues, Chief Justice Warren Burger recommended that the case be reargued, stating, "These cases are not as simple for me as they appear to be for the other justices." The Court then ordered a second round of arguments, which it heard in October 1972. Finally, in January 1973 the Court decided 7-2 in favor of Roe.Justice Harry A. Blackmun wrote the Court's majority opinion and written document that announces the Court's decision and explains its reasoning. At the outset of his opinion, Blackmun noted "the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy" and the "vigorous opposing views" held by many Americans. He observed that "one's philosophy, one's experiences, one's exposure to the raw edges of human existence, one's religious training, one's attitudes toward life and family and their values, and the moral standards one establishes and seeks to observe, are all likely to influence and to color one's thinking and conclusions about abortion." But having noted these difficulties, Blackmun stressed the need to resolve the issue of abortion based on an interpretation of the Constitution.Blackmun noted that legislatures in England and the United States had made important differences between abortions performed early in a pregnancy and those performed later. In overturning these statutes, Blackmun noted that by the 1970s the medical dangers posed by pregnancy and childbirth might be greater to women than the dangers from an abortion. He cited medical evidence suggesting that "mortality rates for women undergoing early abortions, where the procedure is l...
