Before and after Roe v. Wade Tuesday marks 40th anniversary of
landmark decision Tuesday marks the 40th anniversary of the Roe
v. Wade Supreme Court decision. In a 7-2 ruling on Jan. 22,
1973, the justices declared laws prohibiting abortion violated a
woman's constitutional right to privacy. They also said states
could regulate abortion procedures in the interest of a woman's
health or in protecting a potential human life starting at the
end of the pregnancy's first trimester. Abortion was legal under
common law in the United States leading up to the 19th century,
says Leslie Reagan, professor of history and law at the
University of Illinois and author of "When Abortion was a
Crime." Early laws only prohibited the use of toxic substances
to cause miscarriages after "quickening," or when a woman feels
her child move -- usually four or five months into the
pregnancy. "That was the moral point where people understood
there was a life," Reagan says. Since then, the definition of
life has been debated many times o