On the 22nd of January, 1973, the United States Supreme Court passed a landmark ruling in the form of Roe v. Wade. Roe v. Wade has correctly been characterised as a fundamental decision, particularly in regards to the ‘right to privacy’ and, on a larger scale, women’s rights as a whole. Brought to the Supreme Court by Norma McCorvery (‘Jane Roe’) and her lawyers in protest against Texas’ abortion laws, Roe v. Wade argued that the current Texan abortion laws were unconstitutional; Texan law, at that time, stated that all abortion was illegal with an exception for actions deemed necessary to save a potential mother’s life. Described by legal journalists such as Linda Greenhouse as a form of judicial activism, the 1973 ruling resulted in not only a new configuration for abortion in the States’ legal field but within its social and political spheres, too. Post Roe v. Wade, these laws alongside many others throughout the country were struck down and replaced with newer and more progressive federal rulings; the ruling given in the 2022 court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organisation was a complete systematic undoing of this earlier progression towards women’s rights. The decision overturned Roe v. Wade and began a political and cultural deconstruction of respect for women and their autonomy within the United States, upon which many women have begun opting out of heterosexual relationships as a form of self-preservation. This project will seek to examine the effects of overturning such a monumental legal decision, particularly in its applications within the modern feminist movement and the more radical forms of feminism that preceded it. Have the reactions of women in the face of this supposed ‘backwards’ ruling been justified? Is the decision to withdraw compliance and activity within heterosexual relationships personal, political, or a form of more active protest? Drawing on a range of feminist viewpoints and historically relevant events, this project will use the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade as a basis for its examination of female reaction and, more ultimately, its examination of women’s duty to heterosexuality.