Who, what, why -- Roe v. Wade???

Question

I'm trying to understand this case better, but I'm very confused as to WHO are involved in the case (judge, two opposing sides) what exactly happened and cause the whole case to start and end, and why did it end the way it did. Also I need to understand it timewise, because when the case started Jane Roe was pregnant by the man who raped her, and when it ended, she already gave birth to the child and gave it up for adoption. So how exactly did it happen?
Please give me enough information that I could use in a small play of the case in class with my teammates. Thank you.

Just describe it breathly from begining to end. I don't want it to be too long... if you know a really well written source, you can use that too.

Answer 1

In 1970, attorneys Linda Coffee and Sarah Weddington filed suit in a U.S. District Court in Texas on behalf of Norma L. McCorvey ("Jane Roe"). McCorvey claimed her pregnancy was the result of rape, although she now says her claim was false. The defendant in the case was Dallas County District Attorney Henry Wade, representing the State of Texas.

The district court ruled in McCorvey's favor, but refused to grant an injunction against the enforcement of the laws barring abortion. The district court's decision was based upon the Ninth Amendment, and the court also relied upon a concurring opinion by Justice Arthur Goldberg in the 1965 Supreme Court case of Griswold v. Connecticut, regarding a right to use contraceptives. Few state laws proscribed contraceptives in 1965 when the Griswold case was decided, whereas abortion was widely proscribed by state laws in the early 1970s.

Roe v. Wade ultimately reached the U.S. Supreme Court on appeal. Following a first round of arguments, Justice Harry Blackmun drafted a preliminary opinion that emphasized what he saw as the Texas law's vagueness. Justices William Rehnquist and Lewis F. Powell, Jr. joined the Supreme Court too late to hear the first round of arguments. Therefore, Chief Justice Warren Burger proposed that the case be reargued; this took place on October 11, 1972. Weddington continued to represent Roe, and Texas Assistant Attorney General Robert C. Flowers stepped in to replace Wade. Justice William O. Douglas threatened to write a dissent from the reargument order, but was coaxed out of the action by his colleagues, and his dissent was merely mentioned in the reargument order without further statement or opinion.

Answer 2

"Roe" got pregnant and wanted an abortion, the state said no. She sued the state (Wade). Lower courts ruled against her and she had to have the baby. The supreme court decided to take the case anyway, and ruled in her favor, striking down the abortion ban based on a new (and in my opinion, extremely shaky) legal theory. The ruling didn't affect her, since she already had the kid, but it affected millions after her.

Twenty years later, she spoke out that she regretted what she did.

Answer 3

I don't have all of the information that you need, but i will say this;

never has the Judicial branch of the government overstepped it's bounds as much as it did here.

Forget whether or not you are pro-life, Pro-choice, the Judicial branch of the Federal Government MADE A LAW IT HAD NO CONSTITUTIONAL BUSINESS MAKING!!

If each and every state wants to decide how to proceed on this, I say, fine and I wish them well.

This should never have been made a law.

Answer 4

Google "roe vs. wade wiki".

Answer 5

don't think it happened that way

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_McCorvey



Interesting
She is now pro-life