The language of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision establishing a constitutional right to abortion, expresses a deep concern for women's physical, social, and economic well being, concerns which speak to principles of liberty and equality. And as the progeny of a line of substantive due process cases and the beginning of a movement toward application of the Equal Protection Clause to gender classifications, the decision represented the transformative fusion of freedom of moral choice with the empowerment of women. However, as a traditional exercise of substantive due process, the decision has been the target of severe criticism for allegedly being an abuse of judicial authority. In this dissertation, I argue that the decision can be justified by a more limited form of substantive due process, provided that abortion rights can be shown to affect women's access to the political process. In light of Roe's language, its placement in constitutional history, and other relevant authorities, there is precedent for this argument. Without reproductive freedom, women are denied a freedom fundamental to their humanity and a decision-making opportunity fundamental to their morality, which inevitably compromises the intellectual and critical engagement essential to political citizenship and, by extension, democratic government. Thus, like other intellectual and personal liberties, abortion rights have implications for women's effectiveness as political actors. Alternatively, abortion and other reproductive rights may also warrant equal protection scrutiny.
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