The Supreme Court's Impact on Abortion

Abstract

This paper is aimed at portraying an objective view at whether or not the United States Supreme Court's rulings on cases pertaining to abortion have had a significant numerical impact on the country. The first half of the paper describes background information on the Court's role in society as well as background information on abortion itself. This includes all thirty-four Supreme Court cases which involve abortion and some different theories as to how States react towards the Court's rulings. Five of those cases are introduced in more detail with their particular majority, concurring, and dissenting opinions. The second half of the paper describes the methodology and data collected pertaining to abortion rates, birth rates, the total number of abortions performed, and the abortion ratio per each of the years the Court ruled to limit or expand a woman's right to an abortion. My conclusion will reveal that the Supreme Court's influence in determining abortion rates and the nation's population is not significant.