From The Economist: "Roe is a pretty flimsy decision. The idea that the constitution protects "the right to privacy" was already something of a stretch when Justice William Douglas discovered it in the Griswold v Connecticut case in 1965. Ruling that the state government could not stop married couples from purchasing contraception, Douglas wrote that the right to privacy exists because the ?specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance.? It was these penumbras and emanations that were stretched still further in 1973 when the court ruled on Roe."