Donald Trump said all legal scholars, ‘on both sides,’ wanted Roe v. Wade overturned. That’s wrong.

Former President Donald Trump often boasts about his role in overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision that federally protected abortion access.

Trump reiterated that point in an April 8 video statement outlining his position on abortion. He said he was proud to have nominated three U.S. Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn the ruling in 2022 in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

But Trump went further in the video, arguing that overturning Roe was what "everyone" had wanted. 

"I was proudly responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted, and in fact demanded: Roe v. Wade. They wanted it ended," Trump said in the video, shared on his Truth Social platform. Later in the clip, Trump said Roe’s overturning has left "abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint." 

Previously, we rated False a claim from his video that Democrats support the "execution" of babies "after birth." 

Trump is also wrong about whether "all" legal scholars wanted and called for Roe’s demise. 

Some legal scholars wanted the ruling tossed out, including many whose anti-abortion beliefs would have aligned with overturning Roe. But there were plenty who did not want Roe overturned, including some who told us so.

"This is not accurate. Many legal scholars have not only decried the overturning of Roe v. Wade, but have also been highly critical of Alito's opinion, which places other recognized constitutional rights in questions" such as marriage and contraception, said Lois Shepherd, a professor of law and biomedical ethics at the University of Virginia. "I also take exception to Trump's claim about ‘both sides’ — both sides of what? Legal scholars are not divided into two camps where they see issues either all one way or the other. Legal scholarship is much more complex and nuanced that suggested by that phrase."

"It’s very obvious that the vast majority of legal scholars support the result in Roe v. Wade and oppose Dobbs," added Ilya Somin, a law professor at George Mason University, and former co-editor of the Supreme Court Economic Review. "Some have issues with the details of Roe’s reasoning. But they overwhelmingly like the result, at least insofar as it generally protects abortion rights."

Leslie Francis, a University of Utah professor of law and philosophy, agreed.

"Roe v. Wade has been the subject of extensive discussion among legal scholars, from many different facets. While groups of scholars have sometimes coalesced, for example signing amicus briefs, I don’t think it’s fair to say that legal scholars on both sides wanted or demanded the end of Roe," she said. 

The Trump campaign did not answer an inquiry for this article.

After the Supreme Court decided Roe in 1973, its general principles were upheld, though sometimes scaled back, in subsequent rulings.

But in June 2022, the Supreme Court decided the Dobbs case, which challenged the constitutionality of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, a law banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The court upheld the Mississippi law, and thanks to Trump’s three appointees who joined the 6-3 majority, voted to overturn Roe.

The Dobbs case holds clear evidence that not "all" legal scholars "wanted, and in fact demanded" that Roe be overturned: At least three amicus briefs collectively signed by six law professors urged the court not to overturn Roe. 

One, submitted by Serena Mayeri of the University of Pennsylvania, Melissa Murray of New York University and Reva Siegel of Yale University, argued that the Mississippi law was unconstitutional under equal-protection standards — the idea that the government cannot deny people equal protection of the law.

Another brief, submitted by Khiara M. Bridges of the University of California, Berkeley and Dorothy E. Roberts of the University of Pennsylvania, argued the Mississippi law would disproportionately hurt people of color and people with low incomes. 

A third amicus brief, submitted by Northeastern University’s Martha F. Davis, disagreed with Mississippi’s assertion that overturning Roe would align American abortion laws more closely with those of other countries. She wrote that the argument was based on an "oversimplified and cursory review" that looked only at time limits on abortion access "without any regard for the broader context and application of those laws" and said the court should reject the analysis, calling it misleading.

Some legal experts, even those who support abortion rights, thought Roe should have been decided on different constitutional grounds than the ones the justices used in 1973. But this is not the same as "demanding" it be overturned, legal experts told PolitiFact.

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Debbie Wasserman Schultz

stated on November 3, 2011 in a conference call with reporters

Says Mitt Romney "is committed to overturning Roe vs. Wade, and he supports such amendments that define a life as beginning at the moment of conception."

The late liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg shared this view. She argued that Roe would have been better supported constitutionally if it had been based on the Constitution’s equal protection clause, which would have justified it on gender equality rather than the privacy rights implied in the 14th Amendment protecting abortion as a fundamental right. 

"It is essential to woman’s equality with man that she be the decisionmaker, that her choice be controlling," Ginsburg told senators during her Supreme Court confirmation hearing. "If you impose restraints that impede her choice, you are disadvantaging her because of her sex."

The University of Utah’s Francis said Ginsburg was arguing that "an equal protection analysis would also have supported the conclusion in Roe: that a failure to recognize abortion rights has direct effects on people who are physiologically female." 

Ginsburg wasn’t the only one with this view.

University of Pennsylvania law professor Kermit Roosevelt said most of the liberal critics of Roe’s reasoning, including himself, argued that Roe’s argument, based on privacy, was "not very persuasive and people should be looking at equality-based arguments instead."

Mary Ziegler, an abortion historian and law professor at University of California-Davis, agreed. The critics of Roe’s legal reasoning "didn’t say they wanted it overturned. They just said it would be more convincing" if it had been argued on different legal grounds, Ziegler told us.

Roosevelt called Trump’s framing inaccurate.

Roosevelt said "there are a fair number" of liberal critics of the Roe decision, but "the number who called for it to be overturned was far smaller, maybe zero."

Trump said "all legal scholars, both sides, wanted, and in fact demanded" that Roe v. Wade be overturned.

As one of the most contentious legal issues of the past half century, Roe v. Wade inspired legions of supporters and opponents. Before it was overturned in 2022, numerous legal scholars wrote briefs urging the U.S. Supreme Court to uphold the case.

Many legal scholars in favor of abortion rights have criticized the 1973 ruling’s legal underpinnings, saying that different constitutional arguments based on equal protection would have provided a stronger case. But legal experts, including some who hold this view, told PolitiFact that those scholars would not have advocated for overturning Roe because of those underpinnings. 

We rate the statement False.