Two public controversies that specifically the United States has had to deal with include the Supreme Court Case of Roe vs. Wade in regards to abortion laws, as well as some parents refusing to have their kids vaccinated out of fear that they may develop autism or another kind of developmental deficiency.

The Supreme Court case of Jane Roe (not true name) versus Henry Wade, who was the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas. Jane Roe was challenging a Texas law, which made abortion illegal unless ordered by a doctor in order to save a woman’s life. In her lawsuit, Roe alleged that the state laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right of personal privacy, protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments. Justice Harry Blackmun delivered the conclusion made by the majority of the court, with a 7-2 ratio, ruling that the anti-abortion law was unconstitutional and violated a woman’s fundamental rights to her body and choices. This was not well received by several people throughout the United States, as some people consider abortion to be murder, and that life is formed immediately at conception.

In the early days of immunization, distrust in vaccines was well-warranted. There was no official quarantine procedure for those who’d already been diagnosed with the disease and 18^th Century doctors didn’t have quite the same standards as we do in modern day when it came to sanitation and disease prevention. In 1998, a British doctor released a paper investigating the association of the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine to bowel disease and autism. However, in 2011 this paper was found to be false, and founded on false claims with insufficient evidence. Though this paper was debunked, it had ruined the public’s opinion of the MMR vaccine and created several controversies across not only the United States, but worldwide, in the opinion of vaccines and the effects that they may have on the children who receive the vaccines.