By: History.com Editors

1973

Roe v. Wade is decided

History.com Editors

Published: March 27, 2018

Last Updated: March 10, 2025

Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court decision that established a woman’s legal right to an abortion, is decided on January 22, 1973. The Court ruled, in a 7-2 decision, that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The legal precedent for the decision was rooted in the 1965 case of Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right to privacy involving medical procedures.

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Despite opponents’ characterization of the decision, it was not the first time that abortion became a legal procedure in the United States. For most of the country’s first 100 years, abortion as we know it today was not a criminal offense.

In the 1700s and early 1800s, the word “abortion” referred only to the termination of a pregnancy after “quickening,” the time when the fetus first began to make noticeable movements. The induced ending of a pregnancy before this point did not even have a name–but not because it was uncommon. Women in the 1700s often took drugs to end their unwanted pregnancies.

In 1827, though, Illinois passed a law that made the use of abortion drugs punishable by up to three years’ imprisonment. Although other states followed the Illinois example, advertising for “Female Monthly Pills,” as they were known, was still common through the middle of the 19th century.

Abortion itself only became a serious criminal offense in the period between 1860 and 1880. And the criminalization of abortion did not result from moral outrage. The roots of the new law came from the newly established physicians’ trade organization, the American Medical Association. Doctors decided that abortion practitioners were unwanted competition and went about eliminating that competition. The Catholic Church joined the doctors in condemning the practice.

By the turn of the century, all states had laws against abortion, but for the most part they were rarely enforced and women with money had no problem terminating pregnancies if they wished. It wasn’t until the late 1930s that abortion laws were enforced. Subsequent crackdowns led to a reform movement that succeeded in lifting abortion restrictions in California and New York even before the Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on January 22nd

1779

Claudius Smith, “Cowboy of the Ramapos,” hangs

Famed Tory outlaw Claudius Smith meets his end on the gallows on January 22, 1779 in Goshen, New York. In the wake of his death, patriot civilians during the American Revolution hope for relief from guerrilla warfare in upstate New York.

1788

English poet Lord Byron is born

Romantic poet George Gordon, Lord Byron, is born this day in Aberdeen, Scotland. Despite his later fortune and title, Byron grew up in poverty and was burdened by a clubfoot. At age 10, he inherited his great uncle’s title and became Lord Byron. He attended Harrow, then Trinity College, Cambridge, where he ran up enormous debts and pursued passionate relationships with women and men. His first published volume of poetry, Hours of Idleness (1807), was savaged by critics, especially in Scotland, and his second published work, English Bards and Scotch Reviewers (1809), attacked the English literary establishment.

1840

British colonists reach New Zealand

On January 22, 1840, colonists aboard The New Zealand Company’s ship, the Aurora, become the first European settlers to arrive at Petone to found the settlement that would become Wellington.

1879

Chief Dull Knife makes last fight for freedom

Cheyenne chief Dull Knife (also anglicized as "Morning Star") and his people are defeated by U.S. army soldiers after one of their "outbreaks" from reservation confinement. In doing so, the so-called Dull Knife Outbreak came to an end.

1901

Queen Victoria dies

The death of Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901, ends an era in which most of her British subjects know no other monarch. Her 63-year reign saw the growth of an empire on which the sun never set. Victoria restored dignity to the English monarchy and ensured its survival as a ceremonial political institution.

1905

Bloody Sunday Massacre in Russia

Well on its way to losing a war against Japan in the Far East, czarist Russia is wracked with internal discontent that finally explodes into violence in St. Petersburg in what will become known as the Bloody Sunday Massacre.

1918

Ukraine declares its independence

Soon after the Bolsheviks seized control in immense, troubled Russia in November 1917 and moved toward negotiating peace with the Central Powers, the former Russian state of Ukraine declares its total independence.

1920

Netherlands refuses to extradite Kaiser Wilhelm to the Allies

On January 22, 1920, the Dutch government refuses demands by the Allies for the extradition of Wilhelm II, the former kaiser of Germany, who had been living in exile in the Netherlands since November 1918.

1973

Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Texas

On January 22, 1973, former President Lyndon Baines Johnson dies in Johnson City, Texas, at the age of 64.

1980

Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov arrested in Moscow

In Moscow, Andrei Dmitriyevich Sakharov, the Soviet physicist who helped build the USSR’s first hydrogen bomb, is arrested after criticizing the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan. He was subsequently stripped of his numerous scientific honors and banished to remote Gorky.

1981

Final portrait of John and Yoko appears on the cover of “Rolling Stone”

A month and a half after the shocking assassination of John Lennon, on January 22, 1981, Rolling Stone magazine’s John Lennon tribute issue hits newsstands, featuring a cover photograph of a naked Lennon curled up in a fetal embrace of his fully-clothed wife Yoko Ono. The iconic Annie Leibovitz portrait would become the definitive image of perhaps the most photographed married couple in music history.

1984

Apple’s iconic “1984” commercial airs during Super Bowl XVIII

During a break in the action of Super Bowl XVIII on January 22nd, 1984, audiences first see a commercial that is now widely agreed to be one of the most powerful and effective of all time. Apple's "1984" spot, featuring a young woman throwing a sledgehammer through a screen on which a Big Brother-like figure preaches about "the unification of thought," got people around the United States talking and heralded a new age for Apple, consumer technology and advertising.

1998

Ted Kaczynski pleads guilty to bombings

In a Sacramento, California, courtroom on January 22, 1998, Theodore J. Kaczynski pleads guilty to all federal charges against him, acknowledging his responsibility for a 17-year campaign of package bombings attributed to the “Unabomber.”

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2003

Hispanics are officially declared the largest minority group in the U.S.

On January 22, 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau releases detailed statistics on race and ethnicity, the first time such numbers had been released since the 2000 census. The numbers showed that the Hispanic population of the United States had increased by 4.7 percent since the last count, officially making Hispanics the largest minority group in the country.

2008

Heath Ledger dies of accidental prescription drug overdose

On January 22, 2008, Hollywood mourns a talented young actor’s life cut tragically short, after the body of 28-year-old Heath Ledger is found by his masseuse and housekeeper on the floor of his rented apartment in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City.

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Citation Information

Article title
Roe v. Wade is decided
Website Name
History
Date Accessed
March 22, 2025
Publisher
A&E Television Networks
Last Updated
March 10, 2025
Original Published Date
March 27, 2018

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