Court opinion · 2022

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Upholding a Mississippi law that barred most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the Court held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion and overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), returning the authority to regulate abortion to the states, their people and their elected representatives. Justice Samuel Alito’s majority opinion was joined by four other justices; Chief Justice John Roberts agreed only that the Mississippi law should be upheld, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan dissented.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.”

Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. (majority opinion), June 24, 2022

Why it matters

One of the most consequential decisions of the modern Court, it led states to adopt widely varying abortion laws and remains deeply contested: the pro-life movement welcomed it as returning the question to democratic self-government, while the dissenters and abortion-rights supporters condemned it as the loss of a fundamental constitutional protection for women.

Read the full text at supremecourt.gov

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Subjects

abortion supreme court federalism constitution

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