Before roe v wade voices that shaped the abortion debate before the supreme courts ruling yale law school public law working paper no 257 406 pages posted 19 aug 2012 last revised 7 sep 2012 see all articles by linda greenhouse linda greenhouse yale law school reva siegel yale university law school university of california berkeley berkeley center on comparative equality . We post here a new edition of our book a documentary history of the debate over abortion that took place during the decade before the supreme court rendered its decision in roe v wade. Wade offers an in depth look at the different voices that shaped the debate around abortion prior to the roe ruling in 1973 often discussion of roe v wade tends to obscure the political legal and social landscape before the case worked its way through the court system thus before roe v wade seeks to illuminate the environment into which roe landed revealing how the seeds of the contemporary abortion wars were in fact planted in the late 60s and early 70s the book is full of . Before roe v wade is an important book namely because it challenges the perception that abortion rights were the making of the feminist movement over time in fact what it shows is that the lifted restrictions on abortion leading up to the supreme courts ruling was finally pushed by the medical community that had fought fervently to block abortions over the preceding century. The supreme courts 1973 decision in roe v wade legalized abortion but the debate was far from over continuing to be a political battleground to this day in the decades since the case was decided the american debate on abortion has moved away from the issues that the justices confronted more than three decades ago