Lawrence M. Friedman

“The Supreme Court also, and very dramatically, decriminalized abortion in the famous case of Roe v. Wade (1973).28 This case legalized abortion, at least in the early months of pregnancy. It swept away almost all existing laws which either made abortion always or mostly a crime. Politically, the case was—and remains—a bombshell. Legally speaking, the case rested on the constitutional right to privacy—a concept (one must admit) that has only the flimsiest connection with the actual text of the Constitution, if it has any connection at all. The constitutional right to privacy made its debut, basically, in 1965, in Griswold v. Connecticut.29 Connecticut was a state—probably the only one—in which all forms of birth control were still essentially illegal. In Connecticut, to use a drug or device to prevent pregnancy was a crime; it was also a crime to aid or abet anyone in the use of contraception. Family-planning clinics were thus basically forbidden to operate in Connecticut.”
― Lawrence M. Friedman, A History of American Law