Before Roe v. Wade: Voices That Shaped the Abortion Debate Before the Supreme Court's Ruling

The definitive book on Roe v. Wade by a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

Perhaps no other court case in history has been discussed as much as Roe v. Wade. Now, for the first time, Abortion and the Court presents the most important documents concerning the case, collected in a single volume, in order to shed light on what this infamous case has come to mean in our society.

In this ground breaking book, Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who covered the Supreme Court for 30 years for The New York Times, and Reva Siegel, a Yale law professor, collect the most significant briefs that were presented to the Supreme Court, as well as important documents from the period leading up to the decision, and from the immediate aftermath. The book gives readers a better understanding of the context in which the Court decided the case, who the lawyers were presenting the briefs, and what their arguments focused on. The material collected for this book will reveal that the story of Roe v. Wade is more multi-dimensional than is commonly understood today.

Before Roe v. Wade also gives readers an intimate glimpse into what the justices had in front of them as they met to decide the case. Also included are the essential legal briefs, as well as Justice Harry A. Blackmun's contemporary explanation of his majority opinion in the landmark decision that would change American politics for decades to come.
Linda Greenhouse, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist, covered the Supreme Court for the New York Times for many years and now teaches at Yale Law School. She is the author of a biography, Becoming Justice Blackmun: Harry Blackmun's Supreme Court Journey (2005). A graduate of Radcliffe College (Harvard), she holds a Master of Studies in Law degree from Yale.
Reva B. Siegel is the Nicholas deB. Katzenbach Professor of Law at Yale University. She teaches constitutional law, civil rights, and legal history and writes on the ways courts interact with representative government and popular movements in interpreting the Constitution. She is coeditor of The Constitution in 2020 and Processes of Constitutional Decisionmaking. She received undergraduate, graduate, and law degrees from Yale.