The Supreme Court’s 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. Bringing to light key voices that illuminate the case and its cultural context, Before Roe v. Wade looks back and recaptures how the arguments for and against abortion took shape as claims about the meaning of the Constitution—and about how the nation could best honor its commitment to dignity, liberty, equality, and life. In this book, Linda Greenhouse and Reva Siegel collect the most significant historical, cultural, and legal documents which helped shape the Supreme Court’s controversial decision. This website gives readers a preview to those documents and much more.
Documents Collection Center
Welcome to the Yale Law School Library Document Collection Center. This site will publish discrete collections of research material collected by the library.
Some collections are related to faculty publications the library worked on, some collections come from in-house digitization projects, and others have been collected as part of other law school projects.
We look forward to adding additional collections and enhancements in the future, including a powerful cross-collection search. For questions, comments, and suggestions please contact the Law Library Webmaster
Collections
Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms
By mapping the remarkable run of the icon of Justice, a woman with scales and sword, and by tracing the development of public spaces dedicated to justice—courthouses—Professors Judith Resnik and Dennis Curtis explore the evolution of adjudication into its modern form as well as the intimate relationship between the courts and democracy. The authors analyze how Renaissance “rites” of judgment turned into democratic “rights,” requiring governments to respect judicial independence, provide open and public hearings, and accord access and dignity to “every person.” With over 220 images, readers can see both the longevity of aspirations for justice and the transformation of courts, as well as understand that, while venerable, courts are also vulnerable institutions that should not be taken for granted. This website gives readers a preview to some of those images and much more.