United States v. Vuitch’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
143 federal appellate · 72 district · 127 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 530 later decisions (41 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Roe v. Wade (1973), Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974)
143 federal appellate · 72 district · 127 state decisions — followed in 26 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia District Court)
Relationships
Relies on Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Shapiro v. Thompson · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Screws v. United States
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 530 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“necessary for the preservation of the mother's life or health.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is a general guide to the interpretation of criminal statutes that when an exception is incorporated in the enacting clause of a statute, the burden is on the prosecution to plead and prove that the defendant is not within the exception.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Certainly this construction [permitting abortions for mental health reasons] accords with the general usage and modern understanding of the word “health,” which includes psychological as well as physical wellbeing. Indeed Webster’s Dictionary, in accord with that common usage, properly defines health as the “[s]tate of being sound in body [or] mind.” Viewed in this light, the term “health” presents no problem of vagueness. Indeed, whether a particular operation is necessary for a patient’s physical or mental health is a judgment that physicians are obviously called upon to make routinely whenever surgery is considered.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.