Roe v Wade and Changing Social Policy Essay Example

the number of working women increased during this time period, the culture and media viewed these women with scorn or suspicion, rising up the homemaker as the ideal woman.

(Humphreys, D. ) On television, the women that were depicted were typically housewives and shared certain characteristics. (Smeale, E. )They were depicted as pretty, simple-minded, obsequious and docile, deferring to the role of the father as head of the household. Perhaps the most blatant example of this paradigm is a popular show called ???Father Knows Best???. (Smeale, E.

All of the other ???family??? shows of the 1950s glorified this role structure for women. Such shows included I Love Lucy, Leave It To Beaver, the Honeymooners, and many others. (Smeale, E. ) Magazines such as Better Homes and Gardens and McCall???s also promoted the ideal of the housewife.

(Smeale, E. ) Churches and other religious sources promoted homemaking and child-rearing as virtuous, tacitly condemning those women who were not married with children. (Smeale, E. ) An increasing discrepancy between this ideal and the reality of many women spurred a new movement for social change.

As the decade began, the FDA approved the first pill-based form of birth control, giving women unprecedented control over reproduction. (???Margaret Sanger??????)In 1963, Betty Friedan published a book called The Feminine Mystique, which argued that women are not completely fulfilled by the role of mother and housewife. (Smeale, E. ) As the sixties continued, many political and social events furthered the notion of the ???New Woman. ??? (Smeale, E. ) In 1966, the National Organization of Women was formed to advance the political and social

agenda of ???liberated women.

(Smeale, E. )The national Organization of Women began to push for more political form, attempting to have an Equal Rights Amendment ratified. (???History of???ERA???)While all of this was happening, conservatives and religious groups were organizing to oppose what they saw as destabilizing, and harmful practices among women. (Smeale, E. ) Right to life groups, which began forming in 1965, began exercising political pressure on state governments to ban certain forms of birth control. (Smeale, E.

) When the Supreme Court limited the scope of such bans in Griswald v.??Connecticut, the movement focused its efforts on abortions, prompting many states to outlaw the practice. (Smeale, E. )The results of the outlawing of abortion combined with the social changes that women were experiencing in the 1960s prompted the courts to clarify their position on abortion as a right for women. (Rove v. Wade, A History???)The dangerous and harmful practice of ???back-alley??? abortions and the publicity of cases where the lack of abortion as a legal option endangered or killed the mother softened some of the public???s view on the matter.

The culmination of the changing social status of women, and the intense focus on rights engendered by the Civil Rights Movement compelled the Court to acknowledge reproductive rights for women. (Rove v. Wade, A History???) Since the time of the Roe v. Wade decision, a backlash against the practice of abortion has occurred.

(Rove v. Wade, A History???) Religious conservatives and political conservatives condemn the practice as wholesale murder disguised as ???choice. ??? (Rove v.??Wade, A History???)Opponents of abortion, including, ironically, the woman who was

Roe in the original case, have effectively mobilized to create an atmosphere where abortion is not an acceptable option. (Rove v. Wade, A History???)Medical advances in natal care and other forms of birth control have buttressed their arguments.

(Rove v. Wade, A History???) The Supreme Court, while stopping short of overturning Roe v Wade, has responded with a series of decisions designed to limit the practice of abortion. Masci, D) In 1989, the Supreme Court narrowly upheld a Missouri statute that banned the use of public facilities for abortion. (Masci, D)In 1992, the Court held that pre-abortion counseling and waiting periods did not place an ???undue burden??? on the rights of a pregnant woman.

(Masci, D) It is clear from the path of these decisions that Supreme Court decisions are influenced by existing social trends, rather than affecting these social trends. Historians have pointed out that the practice of abortion, once made legal, did not increase in frequency when illegal abortions were figured into the equation.Work Citedhttp://pewforum.org/docs/?DocID=352http://www.feminist.org/research/chronicles/fc1953.html