![]() Wade was less a constitutional decision than a poor imitation of “a statute enacted by a legislature,” and a mockery of substantive due process. Justice Alito posits, in Dobbs, that Roe v. And, before viability, it could not restrict abortion for the purposes of “protecting fetal life.” It could only intervene in the second trimester in order to protect maternal health. The state had no business anywhere near abortion decisions in the first trimester. But the protective boundaries that Roe marked around reproductive freedom were bright and unmistakable. The language of Roe is regrettably patriarchal, as it casts the pregnant woman as a mere consultant to the (male) physician. With respect to the State’s important and legitimate interest in potential life, the “compelling” point is at viability. If that decision is reached, the judgment may be effectuated by an abortion free of interference by the State. The attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient’s pregnancy should be terminated. Writing for the majority in Roe, Justice Harry Blackmun stated that, for those first twelve or so weeks: Wade held that the government had no “compelling interest” in a pregnancy whatsoever during the first trimester, when the vast majority of abortions are performed. The road to Dobbs was cleared in part by Casey.įor nineteen years, up until the decision in Casey, Roe v. The decision epitomized a centrist, compromising approach to bodily autonomy, one that ostensibly sought comity between opposing sides, but which permitted the language, precepts, and assumptions of the anti-abortion movement to seep into the mainstream discourse on reproductive rights. ![]() But our vague, muddled grasp of Casey-and its vague, muddled wording-is integral to its power: Casey’s role in emboldening anti-abortion activists and curtailing abortion rights unfolded quietly and gradually, state by state, bill by bill. After all, Casey neither established nor rescinded reproductive freedom for women in America. It is somewhat understandable that Casey has not become synonymous with the American abortion debate in the same way that Roe did, or that Dobbs will. Casey, the case decided in 1992 that revisited and revised Roe v. A State can thus transform what, when freely undertaken, is a wonder into what, when forced, may be a nightmare.”īut the dissent in Dobbs has a blind spot, and it has to do with Planned Parenthood v. (The last of these will not seem far-fetched if Republicans win back Congress and the White House in 2024.) “As of today,” the three dissenting Justices write, “this Court holds, a State can always force a woman to give birth, prohibiting even the earliest abortions. in the effort to root out anyone who tries to get an abortion.” It points toward a cascade of new legislation and court challenges that may result from the decision: restrictions on interstate travel for abortion providers and patients, criminal sanctions on women who seek abortions, the reversal of other Court decisions that safeguard liberty and equality, even a federal ban on abortion. ![]() Written by Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, it itemizes all the familiar, but no less horrifying, likely consequences of the Court’s opinion: rape survivors forced to bear their rapists’ children, prison terms for abortion providers, and bounty laws that “turn neighbor against neighbor . . . Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in which a majority of the Supreme Court decided to abolish the constitutional right to abortion, is an impassioned, meticulous, and at times usefully nonplussed document. ![]()
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