Many Americans — and it would be shocking if the president of the United States were among them — wrongly assume that by “health” the Supreme Court majority in Roe referred only to situations where a woman faced a dire medical emergency.  

But the same majority that decided Roe issued a companion ruling in a second 1973 abortion case, Doe v. Bolton, that broadly defined “health” to include “all factors — physical, emotional, psychological, familial, and the woman’s age — relevant to the well-being of the patient.” 

Roe and Doe, then, are opposite sides of the same coin. Taken together, they effectively made it legal to abort a child at any time and for any reason. That changed two years ago when the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturned Roe — and by extension, Doe, as well, since the latter ruling affirmed Roe.