In the 1972 case of Doe et al. v. Bolton, Attorney General of Georgia, et al., the United States Supreme Court ruled that a Georgia law regulating abortion was unconstitutional because it violated a woman's right to privacy as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. The law in question required abortions to be performed only in accredited hospitals and mandated approval from at least three doctors before an abortion could proceed; it also limited abortions to cases where pregnancy threatened the mother’s life or health, where there was risk of fetal abnormality, or where pregnancy resulted from rape. The court held that these restrictions were too intrusive into personal decisions about family and childbearing which should be left primarily up to individuals involved with consultation with their physicians.

In the dissenting opinion for Doe et al. v. Bolton, Attorney General of Georgia, et al., Justice William Rehnquist argued that the majority's decision was an overreach of judicial power and a misinterpretation of the Constitution. He contended that there is no "right to privacy" explicitly stated in the Constitution and therefore it should not be used as grounds to strike down state laws regulating abortion. Furthermore, he believed that this issue should be left up to individual states rather than decided by federal courts. He also expressed concern about how broadly health was defined in this case - including psychological and familial factors - arguing it could potentially allow for any reason to justify an abortion under these terms.