Roe v. Wade

Audience

In the majority opinion, Blackmun is speaking, of course, to more than just the government of Texas; his ruling was aimed at instilling uniformity in the patchwork of abortion restrictions that then varied from state to state. The care he took in researching the medical and historical aspects of the issue enfolded the medical community into his audience along with the legal community—and made physicians' judgments key to the enforcement of the rulings' provisions. His opinion also gave lower courts a framework to use in their continuing review of challenges to aspects of the regulation of abortion across the nation.