The growing strength of the pro-life movement in the 1980s and the escalating violence of parts of the movement in the 1990s have led many commentators to question the value of the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade. Had the Supreme Court not lifted first trimester restrictions on abortion in its 1973 decision in Roe, so the argument runs, the states would have gradually enacted laws to change their restrictive abortion laws anyway, thus avoiding the agonizing national controversy that ensued.

One of the most prominent supporters of this position was Ruth Bader Ginsburg. During her confirmation hearings to the Supreme Court last summer, her views about the Roe decision re-entered the public arena. In the course of the hearings she asserted that like the guarantees of individual autonomy found in several Amendments, the right to an abortion should also be grounded in the equal protection provisions of the Constitution, thereby linking women's equality with the ability to control their reproductive function.