Which U.S. Supreme Court case recognized a constitutional right to abortion?

Which U.S. Supreme Court case recognized a constitutional right to abortion? Roe v. Wade did so in 1973.

The Court ruled 7–2 that the Constitution’s protection of liberty under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment included a qualified right to choose an abortion. The case was brought by “Jane Roe,” a pseudonym for Norma McCorvey, against Henry Wade, the Dallas County district attorney responsible for enforcing Texas’s abortion law.

Roe created a trimester framework that gave states increasing authority to regulate abortion as pregnancy progressed. Planned Parenthood v. Casey later replaced that framework with the “undue burden” standard while reaffirming Roe’s central holding in 1992.

A crucial modern qualification is that Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overruled Roe in 2022. Thus, Roe is historically the case that recognized the federal constitutional right, even though the Supreme Court no longer treats the Constitution as guaranteeing that right. Griswold concerned contraception, while Doe v. Bolton was decided alongside Roe and addressed related regulation.