The "Roe vs. Wade" case, which guarantees women's right to abortion, is perhaps the best-known ruling of the US Supreme Court. In 1973, he devotes the battle of a woman against the State of Texas, represented by Dallas Attorney Henry Wade.
It all starts with the fight of Jane Roe, her pseudonym. Aged 21 and pregnant for the third time, she wants to carry out an abortion. But in Texas, as in 45 other American states, the law prohibits it. She then approaches two feminist lawyers who will seize this symbolic case to lead the fight to the Supreme Court.
After three years of proceedings, on 22 January 1973, the Supreme Court recognized abortion by 7 votes to 2 as a fundamental right guaranteed by the Constitution, based on respect for private life.
In 46 years, this jurisprudence has never been overturned, but today, the right to abortion seems more and more threatened in the United States.
While the appointment of two new judges by Donald Trump has tipped the Supreme Court on the conservative side, local policies are gradually nibbling federal law. The clinics that practice abortion are closing one after the other and no longer receive federal subsidies.
The battle is played in the state of Alabama, where the reporters of France 24 Sophie Prychodny and Manon Heurtel surrendered.