36 Years After Roe v. Wade: Protecting the Right to Abortion
While Promoting PreventionDigg This! [From the Guttmacher
Institute] January 22, 2009, marks the 36th anniversary of Roe
v. Wade, the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized
abortion nationwide. This anniversary comes two days after the
inauguration of the first prochoice president in eight years and
at the beginning of a new administration and a new Congress
whose leaders recognize that behind almost every abortion is an
unintended pregnancy. Although the rate of abortion in the
United States has fallen to its lowest level since 1974,
slightly more than one in five pregnancies end in abortion, and
stark disparities persist in rates of unintended pregnancy and
abortion; poor and low-income women are at particularly high
risk. Compared with higher income women, poor women are four
times as likely to have an unplanned pregnancy, three times as
likely to have an abortion and five times as likely to have an
unplanned birth. Consequently, the