The dean of the UC Berkeley School of Law says otherwise.
“For decades before Roe, the Supreme Court held that the liberty of the due process clause protected fundamental aspects of privacy and autonomy. Prior to Roe, the court had protected liberties such as the right to marry, the right to procreate, the right to use contraception, the right to control the upbringing of children and the right of every person to choose “whether to bear or beget a child.”
Roe followed these decisions with the commonsense realization that laws that prohibit abortion and force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will are intrusions on her autonomy and privacy. Unless the court is going to repudiate all of the other privacy rights, it is impossible to deny that laws prohibiting abortion also intrude on a woman’s liberty.”
