The Right to Choose at 25: Looking Back and Ahead With the
Court's decisions in Roe and Doe, the barriers to safe legal
abortion began to fall: states could no longer criminalize
abortion; women could no longer be forced to choose between
continuing an unwanted pregnancy or risking their health and
lives by seeking an illegal abortion. Make a Difference Your
support helps the ACLU defend reproductive rights and a broad
range of civil liberties. The new year marks the 25th
anniversary of choice. It is a time to remember what it meant
not to have the right to choose, to celebrate our advances, to
reaffirm the importance of choice to women's health and
equality, and to recommit ourselves to defending and expanding
the right. 1. Establishing the Right to Choose in American Law
Abortion was not, in fact, illegal in most states until the
second half of the nineteenth century. Before then, medical
experts and other commentators believed that abortion was
commonly sought and widely available. By their estimates, ther