Roe v. Wade: 40 years later
Today marks the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decision on Roe v. Wade.
This past weekend, Carla Hinton and I finished our project about the anniversary.
In one of Carla’s stories, she wrote about a large group of young people who will participate in the March for Life on Friday. A total of 220 high school and college-age Oklahomans will participate in the march.
These young people are apparently in the minority of people younger than 30 who even know what Roe v. Wade is about.
The Pew Research Center recently found that there seems to be an age gap in who knows what the case was about:
Decades after the Supreme Court rendered its decision, on Jan. 22, 1973, most Americans (62%) know that Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion rather than school desegregation or some other issue. But the rest either guess incorrectly (17%) or do not know what the case was about (20%). And there are substantial age differences in awareness: Among those ages 50 to 64, 74% know that Roe v. Wade dealt with abortion, the highest percentage of any age group. Among those younger than 30, just 44% know this.
