“Privacy” today presents paradoxes of knowledge, social vision, and power. Nowhere are these three paradoxes more evident than in the issue of abortion.

The current controversy over abortion reflects two distinct sets of issues. While Roe v. Wade represents the most striking development in the evolution of the constitutional right to privacy, which the Supreme Court enunciated in Griswold v. Connecticut, it is also widely viewed as the epitome of the federal courts’ heightened assertiveness since Brown v. Board of Education. Roe v. Wade has evoked a strong response for both reasons, as pro-life forces have made enormous efforts to limit and eventually overturn what is in their view a license to murder, a license issued on unprincipled grounds by an unelected and remote institution. Pro-choice groups have defended the right to abortion with equal, if somewhat belated vigor, for they realize that the re-criminalization of abortion would constitute an incalculable blow against the struggle for women’s equality. Defenders of the Court have also been at pains to reject the charge that Roe v. Wade represents a dangerous and undemocratic usurpation of power by the judiciary.