While Roe v. Wade was without a doubt one of the most phenomenal gains for women's rights in the history of US law, it's important to remember today that even it was a compromise. When first agitating for a closer look at abortion law in the late 1960s and early 1970s—when some activists were for "appeal" and not "reform"—one New York group took to handing out copies of their ideal abortion law: a blank piece of paper.
Even the now-common terms "choice" and "life" were compromises to the New Right, a concession to their conviction that abortion was about the life of an unborn child—when earlier activists strove to make sure that women were aware that abortion was in fact about the potential damage unplanned or unwanted pregnancy can have on a woman's body, emotional health, and economic stability in an environment already weighted against women's autonomy and survival.
