Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization | |
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Argued December 1, 2021 Decided June 24, 2022 | |
Full case name | Thomas 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 |
Citations | 597 U.S. 215 (more) 142 S. Ct. 2228, 213 L. Ed. 2d 545, 2022 WL 2276808; 2022 U.S. LEXIS 3057 |
Argument | Oral argument |
Decision | Opinion |
Case history | |
Prior |
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Subsequent |
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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 | |
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Case opinions | |
Majority | Alito, joined by Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett |
Concurrence | Thomas |
Concurrence | Kavanaugh |
Concurrence | Roberts (in judgment) |
Dissent | Breyer, 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. The Mississippi law was based on a model by a Christian legal organization, Alliance Defending Freedom, with the specific intent to provoke a legal battle that would reach the Supreme Court and result in the overturning of Roe.[1] 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.[2] 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,[3][4] labor unions,[5] editorial boards,[6] most Democrats, and many religious organizations (including most 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.[7][8][9] There have been conflicting analyses of the impact of the decision on abortion rates.[10][11][12][13]
Dobbs was widely criticized and led to profound cultural changes in American society surrounding abortion.[14] 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 18 states, overwhelmingly in the Southern United States.[15][16] In national public opinion surveys, support for legalized abortion access rose 10 to 15 percentage points by the following year.[17][18] Referendums 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.[19]
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.
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...
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