If it was obvious that the Constitution protects abortion, then why did it take over a century before anti-abortion laws got overturned?

The fact is that the US Constitution nowhere enumerates the powers of the states. A fact that Article X of the Bill of Rights makes abundantly clear. Therefore states have rights to do lots of things that are not covered in the US Constitution. (For a random example, U.S. v. Morrison in 2000 said that Congress does not have the authority to pass a law prohibiting rape. Yet all states have such laws, and there is no legal controversy about this.)

At the time of Roe vs Wade there was no federal law against abortion. But all but a handful of states had state laws against it. The question was whether the US Constitution could be used to overturn those state laws. Therefore the finding can't just be of the form, "The Constitution says nothing about this, so you can't do it!" but has to be, "The Constitution forbids this, so you can't do it!"

This can be seen by reading the actual text of [link|http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113|Roe vs Wade]. If there was a direct or obvious argument forbidding abortion, then they would have used it. Instead they had to base it on a right to privacy which is not actually stated in the Constitution, but which is in accord with how several amendments have been interpreted. The district court based this right on the 9th amendment. The Supreme Court primarily on the 14th. (In particular on that bit which says, ...nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law...)

They did not give a simple, direct argument because there is none to give. It has to be circuitous because you have to find it indirectly in the Constitution.

By contrast if the Supreme Court wanted to forbid abortion, it would be trivial. The 14'th amendment starts off:

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

In Roe vs. Wade the Court found based on historical evidence that person did not mean unborn persons. If the Court found the opposite then abortion would suddenly be comprehensively banned instead of permitted. That is as reasonable a reading of the actual text as the one the Court took. (Given the history behind the text, the Court chose the right reading.)

Likewise if Roe vs Wade had not happened, then it would be within the bounds of how the Commerce Clause is interpreted these days for Congress to pass a law saying that you are not allowed to be in the business of providing abortions. (Of course Roe vs Wade is a more direct precedent, so Congress couldn't get away with this approach. Else they would have tried.)

Finally I'd like to note that if Bush gets his way, a few years from now there will be precedent from the Supreme Court saying that abortion is not, after all, protected by the Constitution.

Cheers,
Ben

Most of those things took time because making them happened required changing the Constitution. And that took time.

I am not familiar which the case that made Indians citizens of the USA. On the face of it, the 14th amendment should have done the trick. However I can see how someone might argue that Indians are technically foreign nations and therefore are not under the jurisdiction of the USA. (Note: I'm not saying that this argument is correct, just that I can see how it could be made.)

Cheers,
Ben

There is a difference between creating new law or amendments to the Constitution and figuring out how the Constitution should be read. If it is obvious, then it should take little time to read the Constitution and see that fact.

OTOH we still have the state of West Virginia around even though its creation was extremely dubious constitutionally speaking. (Read, was plainly wrong.) So not all things that are obvious happen right away. (Or ever, I don't think that West Virginia will ever merge with Virginia.)

Cheers,
Ben