Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 1, 2021
Decided June 24, 2022
Full case nameThomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health, et al. v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, et al.
Docket no.19-1392
Citations597 U.S. 215 (more)
142 S. Ct. 2228, 213 L. Ed. 2d 545, 2022 WL 2276808; 2022 U.S. LEXIS 3057
ArgumentOral argument
DecisionOpinion
Case history
Prior
Subsequent
Questions presented
Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.
Holding
The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Roberts
Associate Justices
Clarence Thomas · Stephen Breyer
Samuel Alito · Sonia Sotomayor
Elena Kagan · Neil Gorsuch
Brett Kavanaugh · Amy Coney Barrett
Case opinions
MajorityAlito, joined by Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett
ConcurrenceThomas
ConcurrenceKavanaugh
ConcurrenceRoberts (in judgment)
DissentBreyer, Sotomayor, Kagan
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV;
Mississippi Code § 41-41-191 (2018)
This case overturned a previous ruling or rulings
Roe v. Wade (1973)
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992)

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, 597 U.S. 215 (2022), is a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in which the court held that the Constitution of the United States does not confer a right to abortion. The court's decision overruled both Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), returning to the federal and state legislatures the power to regulate any aspect of abortion not protected by federal statutory law.

The case concerned the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi state law that banned most abortion operations after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy. Jackson Women's Health Organization—Mississippi's only abortion clinic at the time—had sued Thomas E. Dobbs, state health officer with the Mississippi State Department of Health, in March 2018. Lower courts had enjoined enforcement of the law. The injunctions were based on the ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which had prevented states from banning abortion before fetal viability, generally within the first 24 weeks, on the basis that a woman's choice for abortion during that time is protected by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Oral arguments before the Supreme Court were held in December 2021. In May 2022, Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion by Justice Samuel Alito; the leaked draft largely matched the final decision. On June 24, 2022, the Court issued a decision that, by a vote of 6–3, reversed the lower court rulings. A smaller majority of five justices joined the opinion overturning Roe and Casey. The majority held that abortion is neither a constitutional right mentioned in the Constitution nor a fundamental right implied by the concept of ordered liberty that comes from Palko v. Connecticut.[1] Chief Justice John Roberts agreed with the judgment upholding the Mississippi law but did not join the majority in the opinion to overturn Roe and Casey.

Prominent American scientific and medical communities,[2][3] labor unions,[4] editorial boards,[5] most Democrats, and many religious organizations (including many Jewish and mainline Protestant churches) opposed Dobbs, while the Catholic Church, many evangelical churches, and many Republican politicians supported it. Protests and counterprotests over the decision occurred.[6][7][8] There have been conflicting analyses of the impact of the decision on abortion rates.[9][10][11][12]

Dobbs was widely criticized and led to profound cultural changes in American society surrounding abortion.[13] After the decision, several states immediately introduced abortion restrictions or revived laws that Roe and Casey had made dormant. As of 2024, abortion is greatly restricted in 17 states, overwhelmingly in the Southern United States.[14][15] In national public opinion surveys, support for legalized abortion access rose 10 to 15 percentage points by the following year.[16][17] Referenda conducted in the decision's wake in Kansas, Montana, California, Vermont, Michigan, Kentucky, and Ohio uniformly came out in favor of abortion rights, generally by margins that were both bipartisan and overwhelming.[18]

  1. ^ Pace, Christooher. "The Disorderly Origin of 'Ordered Liberty': Why the Dobbs Standard For Substantive Due Process is Unlikely to Endure". State Bar of Texas.
  2. ^ Staff (September 21, 2021). "Leading medical groups file amicus brief in Dobbs v. Jackson". American Medical Association. Retrieved August 23, 2023. The amicus brief represents an unprecedented level of support from a diverse group of physicians, nurses, and other health care professionals, which demonstrates the concrete medical consensus of opposition to abortion restriction legislation such as the law at the heart of Dobbs v. Jackson.
  3. ^ Lenharo, Mariana (June 24, 2022). "After Roe v. Wade: US researchers warn of what's to come". Nature. 607 (7917): 15–16. Bibcode:2022Natur.607...15L. doi:10.1038/d41586-022-01775-z. PMID 35750925. S2CID 250022457.
  4. ^ Mueller, Eleanor; Niedzwiadek, Nick (June 27, 2022). "Unions wade gingerly into abortion after SCOTUS ruling". Politico. Retrieved August 23, 2023.
  5. ^ Flood, Brian (October 10, 2022). "Abortion: NY Times, Washington Post, LA Times editorial boards solidly pro-choice but mum on limits". Fox News. Retrieved August 23, 2023.
  6. ^ Otten, Tori (November 1, 2022). "Ob-Gyns Say More People Are Dying Since Dobbs Overturned Right to Abortion". The New Republic. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  7. ^ Bellware, Kim; Guskin, Emily (June 21, 2023). "Effects of Dobbs on maternal health care overwhelmingly negative, survey shows". The Washington Post. ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved September 18, 2023.
  8. ^ Robertson, Rachael (June 21, 2023). "A Year Later, Doctors Feel Impact of Dobbs Decision 'Every Single Day'". MedPage Today. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  9. ^ Horowitch, Rose (October 26, 2023). "Dobbs's Confounding Effect on Abortion Rates". The Atlantic. Retrieved November 12, 2023. But paradoxically, several of the factors that may have contributed to the rise in abortion rates seem to have sprung directly from the Dobbs decision... Some researchers believe that the Dobbs decision has actually convinced more women to get abortions...
  10. ^ Walker, Amy Schoenfeld; McCann, Allison (September 7, 2023). "Abortions Rose in Most States This Year, New Data Shows". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 13, 2023.
  11. ^ Koerth, Maggie; Thomson-DeVeaux, Amelia (October 30, 2022). "Overturning Roe Has Meant At Least 10,000 Fewer Legal Abortions". FiveThirtyEight. ABC News. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  12. ^ Grant, Rebecca. "Nationwide Effort to Track Abortions Found Thousands Fewer People Got Them after Dobbs". The Scientific American. scientificamerican.com. Retrieved November 25, 2023.
  13. ^ Clark, Chelsey S.; Paluck, Elizabeth Levy; Westwood, Sean J.; Sen, Maya; Malhotra, Neil; Jessee, Stephen (November 9, 2023). "Effects of a US Supreme Court ruling to restrict abortion rights". Nature Human Behaviour. 8 (1): 63–71. doi:10.1038/s41562-023-01708-4. ISSN 2397-3374. PMID 37945806. S2CID 265103649.
  14. ^ Times, The New York (May 24, 2022). "Tracking Abortion Bans Across the Country". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  15. ^ Bettelheim, Adriel (September 7, 2023). "Abortions surged in states near those with new bans: study". Axios. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  16. ^ Zernike, Kate (June 23, 2023). "How a Year Without Roe Shifted American Views on Abortion". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  17. ^ Traister, Rebecca (March 27, 2023). "Abortion Wins Elections". The Cut. Retrieved August 23, 2023.
  18. ^ Terkel, Amanda; Wu, Jiachuan (August 9, 2023). "Abortion rights have won in every election since Roe v. Wade was overturned". NBC News. Retrieved August 23, 2023.