ABIDING CONVICTION
A definite conviction of guilt derived from a
thorough examination of the whole case. Used
commonly to instruct juries on the frame of mind
required for guilt proved beyond a reasonable
doubt. A settled or fixed conviction.
ABINGTON SCHOOL DISTRICT V.
SCHEMPP
In 1963 the U.S. Supreme Court banned the
Lord’s
PRAYER and Bible reading in public
schools in Abington School District v. Schem pp,
374 U.S. 203, 83 S. Ct. 1560, 10 L. Ed. 2d 844.
The decision came one year after the Court had
struck down, in
ENGEL V. VITALE, a state-authored
prayer that was recited by public school
students each morning (370 U.S. 421, 82 S.
Ct. 1261, 8 L. Ed. 2d 601 [1962]). Engel
had opened the floodgates; Schempp ensured
that a steady flow of anti-school prayer rulings
would continue into the future. Schempp was in
many ways a repeat of Engel: the religious
practices with which it was concerned were
nominally different, but the logic used to find
them unconstitutional was the same. This time,
the majority went one step further, issuing the
first concrete test for determining violations of
the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause.
The Schempp
RULING involved two cases: its

on this issue—Bible reading cases in state courts
had yielded contradictory rulings since 1910—
Schempp was the first to reach a federal court.
The three-judge panel ruled that the Bible
reading statute violated the First Amendment’s
Establishment Clause (“Congress shall make no
law respecting an establishment of
RELIGION ”)
and interfered with its Free Exercise Clause (“or
prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]”). Local
and state officials immediately appealed to the
U.S. Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court agreed to hear Schempp
along with Murray as a consolidated case.
Madalyn Murray O’Hair and her 14-year-old
son, William Murray, were atheists. They had
challenged a 1905 Baltimore school board rule
requiring each school day to start with Bible
reading or the Lord’s Prayer (“Our father, who
art in heaven ”), or both. An
ATTORNEY
herself, Murray brought the suit only after
protesting to officials, stirring up media atten-
tion, and encouraging her so n to
PROTEST in a
controversial strike that kept him out of school
for 18 days. The suit said the rule transgressed
the Establishment Clause by requiring compul-
sory religious education and violated the Free
Exercise Clause by discriminating against athe-

advocates for ignoring the law, spelled out in
some detail the precedents involved, and laid
out the Court’s first explicit test for Establish-
ment Clause questions. Founded on the idea of
state
NEUTRALITY, this test had a vital standard:
Any law hoping to survive the prohibitions of
the Establishment Clause must have “a secular
purpose and a primary effect that neither
advances nor inhibits religion.”
The test clearly spelled out the limits. Study
of the Bible or religion was acceptable, but
only so long as “presented objectively as part
of a secular program of education.” Religious
practices in public school were not allowed
under the
FIRST AMENDMENT. “While the Free
Exercise Clause clearly prohibits the use of
STATE
ACTION
to deny the rights of free exercise to
anyone,” Justice Clark observed, “it has never
meant that a majority could use the machinery
of the State to practice its beliefs.”
Schempp produced three concurring opi-
nions, notably a 74-page opinion by Justice
William J. Brennan Jr. As in Engel, the sole
dissent came from Justice
POTTER STEWART. Again
he disagreed with the majority’s emphasis on

LEE V.
WEISMAN, 505 U.S. 577, 112 S. Ct. 2649, 120 L.
Ed.2d 467 [1992]).
FURTHER READINGS
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 2002. “The
Establishment Clause and Public Schools: An ACLU
Legal Bulletin.”
Blanshard, Paul. 1963. Religion and the Schools: The Great
Controversy. Boston: Beacon Press.
Brown, Steven P., and Cynthia J. Bowling. 2003. “Public
Schools and Religious Expression: The Diversity
of School Districts’ Policies Regarding Religious Expres-
sion.” Journal of Church and State 45, no. 2 (spring).
Davis, Derek H. 2003. “Moments of Silence in America’s
Public Schools: Constitutional and Ethical Con-
siderations.” Journal of Church and State 45, no. 3
(summer).
Drakeman, Donald L. 1991. Church-State Constitutional
Issues: Making Sense of the Establishment Clause.
Westport, CT: Greenwood.
Levy, Leonard W. 1994. The Establishment Clause: Religion
and the First Amendment. 2d ed. Chapel Hill: Univ. of
North Carolina Press.
“Religion and Schools.” 1994. Congressional Quarterly
(February 18).
Edward L. Schempp,
his wife, Sidney, and
two of his three
children, Roger and
Donna, challenged a

generally refers to the eighteenth- and nineteenth-
century movement to abolish the
SLAVERY
of African Americans. As a significant political
force in the pre-Civil War United States, the
abolitionists had significant effect on the U.S.
legal and political landscape. Their consistent
efforts to end the institution of slavery culmi-
nated in 1865 with the
RATIFICATION of the
Constitution’s
THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT, which
outlawed slavery. The abolitionist ranks encom-
passed many different factions and people of
different backgrounds and viewpoints, includ-
ing European and African Americans, radicals
Abode: Home Ownership vs. Rentals in the United States, 2008
SOURCE: U.S. Census Bureau, Housing Vacancy Survey, 2008.
Less than 62.0%
62.0 to 66.9%
67.0 to 69.9%
70.0% or higher
Home ownership rates by state
Hawaii
Ala
s
k
a
Montana
Washington

N.Carolina
Kentucky
Tennessee
Miss.
Alabama
Georgia
S.Carolina
Florida
Maine
Vt.
N.H.
Mass.
R.I.
Conn.
N.J.
Del.
Md.
D.C.
Renters
28%
Homeowners
58%
Vacancies
14%
ILLUSTRATION BY GGS
CREATIVE RESOURCES.
REPRODUCED BY
PERMISSION OF GALE,
A PART OF CENGAGE
LEARNING.

EMANCIPATION laws that freed all future
children of slaves. By 1804, every Northern state
had enacted some form of emancipation law.
In the South, where slavery played a far
greater role in the economy, emancipation moved
at a much slower pace. By 1800 all Southern states
except Georgia and South Carolina had passed
laws that eased the practice of private manumis-
sion—or the freeing of slaves by individual
slaveholders. Abolitionists won a further victory
in the early 1800s when the United States
outlawed international trade in slaves. However,
widespread
SMUGGLING of slaves continued.
During the first three decades of the 1800s,
abolitionists continued to focus largely on
gradual emancipation. As the nation expanded
westward, they also opposed the introduction of
slavery into the western territories. Although
abolitionists had won an early victory on
this front in 1787, when they succeeded in
prohibiting slavery in the Northwest Territory,
their efforts in the 1800s were not as completely
successful. The
MISSOURI COMPROMISE OF 1820
(3 Stat. 545), for example, stipulated that
slavery would be prohibited only in areas of
the
LOUISIANA PURCHASE north of Missouri’s
southern boundary, except for Missouri itself,

abolitionist tract.
In 1833 this new generation of abolitionists
formed the American Anti-Slavery Society
(AAS). The organization grew quickly, particu-
larly in the North, and by 1840 had reached a
height of 1,650 chapters and an estimated
130,000 to 170,000 members. Nevertheless,
abolitionism remained an unpopular cause even
in the North, and few mainstream politicians
openly endorsed it.
To achieve its goals, the AAS undertook a
number of large projects, many of which were
Members of the
Pennsylvania
Abolition Society
(seated, far right,
William Lloyd
Garrison, founder
of The Liberator,
an abolitionist
newspaper).
NATIONAL PORTRAIT
GALLERY
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
ABOLITION 11
frustrated by Southern opposition. For example,
the organization initiated a massive postal
campaign designed to
APPEAL to the moral

opposition to slavery in the territories newly
acquired from Mexico. They were joined by
defecting Democrats who were disgruntled with
the increasing dom ination of Southern interests
in their party. In 1848 the Free Soil party
nominated as its candidate for U.S. president
MARTIN VAN BUREN, who had served as the eighth
PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES from 1837 to
1841, but Van Buren did not win. (
ZACHARY
TAYLOR
won the election.)
After passage of the
FUGITIVE SLAVE ACT OF
1850 (9 Stat. 462), which required Northern
states to return escaped slaves and imposed
penalties on people who aided such runaways,
abolitionists became actively involved in the
Underground Railroad, a secretive network that
provided food, shelter, and direction to escaped
slaves seeking freedom in the North. This
network was largely maintained by free African
Americans and is estimated to have helped
50,000 to 100,000 slaves to freedom. Harriet
Tubman, an African American and ardent
abolitionist, was one organizer of the Under-
ground Railroad. During the 1850s she bra vely
traveled into South ern states to help other
African Americans escape from slavery, just as
she had escaped herself.

announced the
EMANCIPATION PROCLA MATION,
which freed all slaves in areas still engaged in
revolt against the Union. The
PROCLAMATION
served as an important symbol of the Union’s
new commitment to ending slavery. Lincoln
This frontispiece
illustration, entitled
“A Slave Father Sold
Away from His
Family,” is from the
Child’s Antislavery
Book (1860). The
book was distributed
by the Sunday School
Union in an effort to
alert children to the
horrors of slavery.
CORBIS.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
12 ABOLITION
later supported the ratification of the Thirteenth
Amendment, which officially abolished slavery
in the United States.
After the war, former abolitionists, includ-
ing radical Republicans such as Senator
CHARLES SUMNER (R-Mass.), continued to lobby
for

Diego: Lucent.
CROSS REFERENCES
Compromise of 1850; Dred Scott v. Sandford; Emancipation
Proclamation; Fourte enth Amendment; Fugit ive Slave Act
of 1850; Lincoln, Abraham; Missouri Compromise of 1820;
Prigg v. Pennsylvania; Slavery; Sumner, Charles; Thirteenth
Amendment.
ABORTION
An abortion is the spontaneous or artificially
induced expulsi on of an embryo or fetus. As used
in legal context, the term usually refers to induced
abortion.
History
English COMMON LAW generally allowed abortion
before the “quickening” of the fetus (i.e., the
first recognizable movement of the fetus in the
uterus), which occurs between the sixteenth and
eighteenth weeks of pregnancy. After quicken-
ing, however, common law was less clear as to
whether abortion was a crime. In the United
States, state legislatures did not pass abortion
statutes until the nineteenth century. After 1880
abortion was criminalized by statute in every
state of the Union, owing in large measure to
strong anti-abortion positions taken by the
AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION (AMA). Despite
the illegality, many thousands of women every
year sought abortions. Under a heavy cloak of
shame and secrecy, these abortions were
performed in unsafe conditions, and many

in Denver, Colorado.
DOUG PENSINGER/GETTY
IMAGES
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
ABORTION 13
laws regarding abortion. In Japan and Eastern
Europe, abortion was available on demand, and
in much of Western Europe, abortion was
permitted to protect the mother’s health.
Public awareness of the abortion issue also
increased through two incidents in the early
1960s that caused a greater number of children
to be born with physical defects. In 1961 the
drug thalidomide, used to treat nausea during
pregnancy, was found to cause serious birth
defects. A three-year (1962–1965) German
measles epidemic caused an estimated 15,000
children to be born with defects. Pregnant
women who were affected by these incidents
could not seek safe abortions because of the
strict laws then in existence.
Reacting to these and other developments,
and inspired by the successes of the
CIVIL RIGHTS
MOVEMENT
of the 1950s and 1960s, women’s
rights organizations, including the
NATIONAL
ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN

appeared by their titles to involve the fates of
two individuals,
ROE and Doe, in reality both
suits were brought by many people representing
many different interests. Roe v. Wade was
argued on behalf of all women of the state of
Texas; in legal terminology, it was a
CLASS ACTION
suit. Thirty-six abortion reform groups filed
briefs, or reports, with the Court on Roe’s
Pro-life supporters
march past the
Supreme Court
during the annual
March for Life event.
AP PHOTOS.
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
14 ABORTION
behalf. These included women’s, medical,
university, public health, legal, WELFARE, church,
population control, and other groups. The anti-
abortion side of the case in cluded representa-
tives from seven different anti-abortion groups
and the attorneys general of five states.
Roe involved a person using the pseudonym
Jane Roe—actually Norma McCorvey, who
revealed her identity in 1984. Roe, an unmar-
ried, pregnant woman from Texas, wanted to
have an abortion, but an existing abortion
statute prevented her from doing so. The Texas

NINTH AMENDMENT, which
allows for the exist ence of rights, such as that of
privacy, not explicitly named in the Constitu-
tion’s
BILL OF RIGH TS, and the FOURTEENTH
AMENDMENT
. It refused, however, to grant the
injunction, allowing her to go ahead with
the abortion. Roe then appealed the denial of
the injunction to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Doe v. Bolton involved a 1968 Georgia statute
that allowed abortion if necessary to save the
mother’s life, in the case of pregnancy resulting
from
RAPE or INCEST, or if the baby was likely to
be born with serious birth defects (Ga. Crim.
Code § 26-1202 a, b). However, the statute also
created procedural requirements that effectively
would have allowed few abortions. Those
requirements included hospital accreditation,
committee approval, two-doctor agreement,
and state residency. The case concerned Mary
Doe, who had sought an abortion at Grady
Memorial Hospital in Atlanta. She claimed that
she had been advised that pregnancy would
endanger her health, but the hospital’s Abortion
Rights Committee denied her the abortion. She
sought a DECLARATORY JUDGMENT, holding that the
Georgia law unconstitutionally violated her right
to privacy as well as her Fourteenth Amendment

33rd anniversary of
the Court’s decision to
legalize abortion.
AP PHOTO/PABLO
MARTINEZ MONSIVAIS
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3
RD E DITION
ABORTION 15
into twelve-week trimesters. In the first trimes-
ter, the state cannot regulate abortion or
prevent a woman’s access to it. It can only
require that abortions be performed by a
licensed physician and under medically safe
conditions. During the second trimester, the
state can regulate abortion procedures as long as
the regulations are reasonably related to the
promotion of the mother ’s health. In the third
trimester, the state has a dominant interest in
protecting the “potentiality” of the fetus’s life.
A state may prohibit abortions during this time
except in cases where they are essential to
preserve the life or health of the mother. The
Court also cited judicial precedent in holding
that the fetus is not a “person” as defined by the
Fourteenth Amendment.
In Doe, the Court found the Georgia statute
to be unconstitutional as well, holding that it
infringed on privacy and personal liberty by
permitting abortion only in restricted cases. The
Court ruled further that the statute’s four

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT to effect a reversal of Roe.
Reagan even published a book on the subject in
1984, Abortion and the Conscience of a Nation,
which contains many of the essential positions
of the anti-ab ortion movement. Reagan argued
that the fetus has rights equal to those of people
who are already born. He also cited figures
indicating that 15 million abortions had been
performed since 1973, and he stated his belief
that the fetus experienced great pain as a result
of the abortion procedure. He quoted a
statement by Mother Teresa, the famed nun
who helped the poor of Calcutta: “The greatest
misery of our time is the generalized abortion of
children.” Whereas abortion rights, or pro-
choice, advocates argued that there were public
health advantages of the new abortion laws,
opponents of abortion, such as Reagan, referred
to abortion as a “silent holocaust.”
The anti-abortion, or pro-life, movement
has challenged abortion in a number of
different ways. It has sponsored
CONSTITUTIONAL
amendments that would effectively reverse Roe,
as well as legislation that would limit and
regulate access to abortion, including govern-
ment financing of abortion procedures. Some
anti-abortion groups have practiced
CIVIL DIS-
OBEDIENCE

tion to propose an amendmen t that w ould
GALE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF AMERICAN LAW, 3RD E DITION
16 ABORTION
outlaw abortions. Congressional representatives
have also worked to bring such an amendment
about. The many dozens of amendments that
have been proposed can be grouped into two
main categories: states’ rights and the right to life.
The former would restore to the states the
same control over abortion that they exercised
prior to Roe. The latter would designate the
fetus as a person, entitled to all the privileges and
rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth
Amendment.
One unsuccessful attempt at changing the
Constitution was the Hatch amendment of 1983,
sponsored by Senator Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah),
which stated, “A right to abortion is not secured
by this Constitution.” It did not receive the two-
thirds majority necessary in Congress to be
submitted to the states for
RATIFICATION.
Congress has also sponsored legislation that
would effectively reverse Roe. For example, the
Human Life Bill (S. 158), introduc ed by Senator
JESSE HELMS (R-N.C.) in 1981, would have
established that the fetus is a person, entitled
to the full rights and privileges guaranteed by
the Fourteenth Amendment. The bill did not
pass, and it is doubtful whether Congress has

issued a
RULING related to federal financing
of abortion that many perceived as a dramatic
shift against abortion rights. In
WEBSTER V.
REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH SERVICES, 492 U.S. 490,
109 S. Ct. 3040, 106 L. Ed. 2d 410 (1989), the
Supreme Court upheld a Missouri law prohibit-
ing the use of public funds and buildings for
abortion procedures and counseling, including
a provision that required fetal testing for
viability for abortions performed after the
twentieth week of pregnancy (Mo. Rev. Stat.
§§ 1.205.1, 1.205.2, 188.205, 188.210, 188.215).
Scalia, appointed in 1986, argued in his
concurring opinion that Roe v. Wade should
be overruled and that the Court had missed an
opportunity in not doing so in this case.
The Webster decision resulted in a flood of
new state legislation related to abortion. Many
states sought to reactivate old abortion laws that
had never been taken off the books subsequent to
Roe. Louisiana, for example, sought to reinstate
an 1855 law making all abortions illegal and
imposing a ten-year sentence on doctors and
women violating it. However, in January 1990 a
federal district court ruled that the 1855 law
could not be reinstated and that subsequent laws
allowing abortions in certain circumstances took
precedence (Weeks v. Connick, 733 F. Supp. 1036