Nation IN BRIEF : WASHINGTON, D.C. : Roe Nearly Upset in 1989, Paper Reports

The Supreme Court came so close to overturning the case of Roe vs. Wade in 1989 that three justices already had prepared an angry dissent, declaring the landmark abortion rights decision “no longer survives,” according to an account published in the Washington Post. The newspaper detailed some of the debate within the court during the months before it upheld a Missouri abortion law, Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services. At the time, the case was considered the greatest threat to the survival of the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision declaring abortion legal. The Post account came from a review of thousands of pages of papers left by retired Justice Thurgood Marshall to the Library of Congress after his death in January.