Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

In 2018 Mississippi banned most abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy, well before the point of fetal viability that Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey had made the constitutional line. Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in the state, sued and won in the lower courts. When the Supreme Court took the case, Mississippi asked it not merely to uphold the law but to overrule Roe and Casey altogether.

On May 2, 2022, a draft of the majority opinion was leaked to Politico, an unprecedented breach. The final decision came on June 24. By six to three the Court upheld the Mississippi law. By five to four it overruled Roe and Casey. Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the Constitution makes no reference to abortion, that the right was not deeply rooted in the nation's history and tradition, and that Roe had been egregiously wrong from the start. It was time, he wrote, to return the issue to the people's elected representatives.

Chief Justice John Roberts concurred only in upholding the fifteen-week law and would not have overruled Roe outright. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented jointly, arguing that the majority had stripped women of a fundamental right relied on for half a century and that nothing had changed but the Court's membership. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote separately that the Court should reconsider other precedents resting on the same reasoning.

Within months more than a dozen states had banned most abortions, while others expanded access and some wrote protections into their constitutions. Voters in Kansas, Michigan, Ohio, and several other states sided with abortion-rights positions in ballot measures. Supporters of the ruling called it the correction of a grave constitutional error and a restoration of democratic choice. Opponents called it the first time the Court had taken away a recognized individual right. The fight moved to legislatures, state courts, and the ballot.