Roe v. Wade was not a law in the sense most people mean when they use that word. It was a 1973 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that interpreted the Constitution to protect a right to abortion. Because it was a court decision rather than a statute passed by Congress, it could be revisited and reversed by a later Court, which is exactly what happened in 2022 when the Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and returned abortion regulation to the states.
Court Rulings and Statutes Are Not the Same Thing
For nearly 50 years, Roe functioned like a national law. Every state had to follow it, and lower courts treated it as binding. But the mechanism behind it was different from a statute in ways that ended up mattering a great deal.
A statute is a written rule that Congress drafts, debates, votes on, and sends to the President for signature.1USAGov. How Laws Are Made A Supreme Court ruling is an interpretation of existing law, usually the Constitution itself. The two carry different levels of durability. Repealing a federal statute requires Congress to pass a new law undoing the old one, or a court to strike it down as unconstitutional. Overturning a Supreme Court decision only requires the Court itself to revisit and reverse its earlier interpretation. No vote in Congress is needed.
The Court’s authority to interpret the Constitution this way traces back to Marbury v. Madison in 1803, which established that federal courts have the final say on what the Constitution means.2Congress.gov. Marbury v Madison and Judicial Review That same authority allowed the Court to recognize the right in Roe and, decades later, to take it away. When the Court issues a ruling interpreting the Constitution, lower courts across the country must follow it, which gives major decisions the practical force of law. But the source of that force is the Court’s role as constitutional interpreter, not the legislative process.
What Roe v. Wade Actually Held
The case began as a challenge to a Texas criminal statute that banned abortion except to save the pregnant woman’s life. The plaintiff, filing under the pseudonym Jane Roe, sued Henry Wade, the Dallas County District Attorney responsible for enforcing the law. In 1973, the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause, which prohibits states from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,” protected a right to privacy broad enough to cover the decision whether to end a pregnancy.3Congress.gov. Due Process Generally The Court drew on Griswold v. Connecticut, which had recognized a constitutional right to privacy in the context of contraceptive use.4Justia. Griswold v Connecticut, 381 US 479 (1965)
To balance privacy against the state’s interest in protecting maternal health and potential life, the Court adopted a trimester framework. In the first trimester, the decision belonged to the woman and her physician. In the second, the state could regulate the procedure in ways related to maternal health. In the third, once the fetus reached viability, the state could prohibit abortion, provided exceptions existed for the woman’s life or health.5Justia. Roe v Wade, 410 US 113 (1973) That framework set a national floor that no state could drop below.
How the Ruling Was Changed and Then Undone
The Court itself revised Roe before it reversed it. In 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey reaffirmed the core holding that the Constitution protects a right to choose abortion before fetal viability, but it discarded the trimester system. In its place, the Court adopted the “undue burden” standard: a state regulation was invalid only if its purpose or effect was to place a substantial obstacle in the path of someone seeking a pre-viability abortion.6Justia. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa v Casey, 505 US 833 (1992) Under this test, states could regulate throughout pregnancy, including before viability, as long as the regulation did not impose an undue burden. Waiting periods, informed consent procedures, and parental involvement laws survived. Casey, not Roe’s trimester framework, was the operative standard for the last three decades of the ruling’s life.
Then came Dobbs. In June 2022, the Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging a Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks. The Court held that the Constitution “does not confer a right to abortion,” overruled both Roe and Casey, and returned the authority to regulate abortion “to the people and their elected representatives.” The majority concluded that the right recognized in Roe was not “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition,” the test the Court applies to determine whether an unenumerated right qualifies for Fourteenth Amendment protection.7Justia. Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 597 US 215 (2022)
One point often misunderstood about Dobbs: the ruling did not ban abortion. It removed a federal constitutional protection. States that wanted to ban or restrict abortion became free to do so, and states that wanted to protect access became equally free to do that. The question of who decides shifted from federal courts to state legislatures and voters.
Where Abortion Law Comes From Now
Under the Tenth Amendment, powers not given to the federal government are reserved to the states or the people.8Congress.gov. US Constitution – Tenth Amendment With no federal constitutional right in play after Dobbs, abortion regulation sits within the states’ traditional authority over public health and welfare.9Congress.gov. State Police Power and Tenth Amendment Jurisprudence The result is a patchwork: some states enforce near-total bans, others have enshrined abortion access in their state constitutions, and the rest fall somewhere between.
A nationwide standard could still return, but only through a different mechanism than the one that produced Roe. Congress would have to pass a federal statute, which requires passage by both chambers and the President’s signature.1USAGov. How Laws Are Made Under the Supremacy Clause, a valid federal law overrides conflicting state laws.10Congress.gov. Overview of Supremacy Clause Congress has never enacted such a statute on abortion, in either direction. Bills like the Women’s Health Protection Act have been introduced in recent sessions but have not become law.11Congress.gov. HR 12 – 119th Congress (2025-2026) – Women’s Health Protection Act
A federal statute would be more durable than a court ruling in one sense: a future Supreme Court could not undo it simply by changing its interpretation. But statutes carry their own vulnerability. A future Congress can repeal or amend any law, and courts can strike one down if it exceeds Congress’s constitutional authority. The only truly permanent nationwide standard would be a constitutional amendment, which requires two-thirds of both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures. Short of that, whatever protections or restrictions exist depend on which body created them, and which body can take them away.