A significant event has happened on June 24th, 2022. In a 6-3 ruling, the Supreme Court of the United States decided in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that Mississippi’s abortion law will be upheld. During this case, in a 5-4 vote, the court also overruled Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (1992).
In order to spread information and awareness of this landmark case, please continue reading to inform yourself on the SCOTUS cases at play as well as the responses that the nation and SWE has made regarding this decision.
What happened during Roe v. Wade (1973)?
It was the year 1970 and a woman under the pseudonym Jane Roe filed a lawsuit against the district attorney of Dallas County, Texas, Henry Wade. She challenged the Texas law that made abortion illegal for all cases other than by a doctor’s orders to save the woman’s life. Roe argued that the state's laws were unconstitutionally vague and abridged her right to privacy.
At the time of Roe v. Wade, abortion was legal in four states, limited in sixteen other states, and banned in the remaining thirty states.
On January 22, 1973, in a 7-2 decision, the court ruled that under the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment there is the fundamental “right to privacy” which protects a pregnant person’s choice whether or not to have an abortion. In their conclusion, abortion within the first trimester of pregnancy is unregulated by state laws, however, in the second trimester, states may regulate abortions that are related to maternal health. By the third trimester of pregnancy, states may regulate or prohibit abortions as long as there are exceptions for cases where abortion is necessary to save the health or life of the mother.
This decision nullified abortion bans in 30 states, but it still allowed regulations in the second trimester and bans in the third trimester.
What About Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992)?
In 1988 and 1989, Pennsylvania legislature amended its abortion control law and made new provisions that required informed consent and a 24-hour waiting period for an abortion to be done. If a minor is seeking an abortion, they are required to have parental consent. If a married woman seeks an abortion, she must indicate that she informed her husband of her plans to get an abortion.
In the case Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), the court had to face the question if a state could require women to obtain informed consent and wait 24 hours before getting an abortion. On June 29,1992, in a 5-4 decision, the Court reaffirmed Roe v. Wade under the ruling of stare decisis (meaning to stand by things decided; using a previous court ruling to base a decision on a similar issue in court) and reaffirmed its three parts: “(1) a recognition of a woman's right to choose to have an abortion before fetal viability and to obtain it without undue interference from the State, whose previability interests are not strong enough to support an abortion prohibition or the imposition of substantial obstacles to the woman's effective right to elect the procedure; (2) a confirmation of the State's power to restrict abortions after viability, if the law contains exceptions for pregnancies endangering a woman's life or health; and (3) the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child.” However, the court upheld most of the provisions Pennsylvania set in place, and only nullified the provision that a woman’s husband must be informed.
Present Day: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
In 2018, Mississippi passed the “Gestational Age Act,” which prohibits abortions after 15 week’ gestational age, with only a few exceptions. According to this state law, an abortion could not be performed until a physician first determined and documented a fetus’s probable gestational age. This law also prohibits abortions after fifteen weeks of pregnancy and only held exceptions for medical emergencies and fetal abnormalities.
When this law was enacted, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only licensed abortion facility in Mississippi, challenged the law’s constitutionality in U.S. district court and requested an emergency temporary restraining order to block the law’s enforcement. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi granted the request and held that the law in question was unconstitutional due to "viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions." They concluded that SCOTUS precedent did not allow states to ban abortions before the 24-week mark of pregnancy and granted permanent injunctive relief, invalidating the law. Thomas Dobbs, the Mississippi Department of Health state health officer, appealed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit and this circuit court held that the law was a ban on abortions and unconstitutional. Dobbs then appealed to SCOTUS on June 15, 2020, and on May 17, 2021, the court agreed to hear the case.
On December 1, 2021, SCOTUS heard the oral argument for the case. The question that was presented was “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
After months passed by, on June 24, 2022, in a 6-3 ruling, the court upheld Mississippi’s abortion law and in a 5-4 vote, the court found “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.” Justice Samuel Alito authored the majority opinion, Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh concurred, Chief Justice John Roberts concurred in judgment, and Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented.
The difference in voting comes from Chief Justice John Roberts who voted to uphold Mississippi’s abortion law, but he disagreed that Roe and Casey needed to be overturned. In his concurrence, Roberts wrote “None of this, however, requires that we also take the dramatic step of altogether eliminating the abortion right first recognized in Roe.” and that “The Court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system—regardless of how you view those cases. A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”
For overruling Roe and Casey, the court based their ruling on 5 factors: (1) they “short-circuited the democratic process,” (2) both cases did not have "grounding in constitutional text, history, or precedent," (3) the tests they established were not “workable,” (4) "Roe and Casey have led to the distortion of many important but unrelated legal doctrines, and that effect provides further support for overruling those decisions," and (5) "overruling Roe and Casey will not upend concrete reliance interests."
The Nation’s Response
With abortion being up to the states, there are some states who are pledging to protect access to a safe abortion, however there are states that are passing laws to restrict or ban abortion. It is expected that roughly half of the states will ban or restrict abortion. This decision opens up the possibility for legal fights between states over whether providers and those who help women obtain an abortion in a state where abortion is legal can be prosecuted or sued. In Missouri, a lawmaker has already introduced a bill that let citizens sue someone who helps a person leave a state to obtain an abortion, limiting their options.
Update: On July 8th, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order Protecting Access to Reproductive Health Care Services. According to the statements released by the White House, this order will defend reproductive rights by:
"Safeguarding access to reproductive health care services, including abortion and contraception;
Protecting the privacy of patients and their access to accurate information;
Promoting the safety and security of patients, providers, and clinics; and
Coordinating the implementation of Federal efforts to protect reproductive rights and access to health care."
Link to state-by-state responses: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-abortion-ruling-states-a767801145ad01617100e57410a0a21d
Link to the White House statement on the Executive Order: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/08/fact-sheet-president-biden-to-sign-executive-order-protecting-access-to-reproductive-health-care-services/
Society Women Engineers Response
SWE has decided to take direct action on this issue. “SWE will not sign any new contracts to host its conferences in locations where there are limits to reproductive and gender-based healthcare.”
Link to SWE’s full statement on the U.S. Supreme Court Ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health: https://swe.org/swes-statement-on-u-s-supreme-court-ruling-on-dobbs-v-jackson-womens-health-which-overturns-the-1973-roe-v-wade-decision/
What You Can Do
Elections. Elections are this year. If you want your voice to be heard and have an impact on the government, the best way is to register to vote.
This next election is a midterm election meaning it is the midpoint of the president’s four-year term of office. Unfortunately, midterm elections are historically known to have a lower voter turnout in midterm elections versus presidential elections. Voter turnout in the U.S. in general has been relatively low with the 2020 presidential election having the highest voter turnout of the 21st century with 66.8% of eligible citizens voting in the election. This voter turnout is still well below several developed nations’ voter turnouts around the world. It is essential for us to remember that midterm elections are just as important as presidential elections. These elections can decide the fate of the U.S. Senate, U.S. House of Representatives, State Governor, State Senate, State House, and others. These offices will influence the Federal, State, and Local governments.
Before the midterm elections, primary elections are held to decide which candidates appear on the midterm election ballot. Florida is a Closed Primary Election State, meaning that only voters who are registered with a political party can vote in that party’s primary elections, but all registered voters may vote on issues and nonpartisan contests. Voters may change party affiliation anytime, but by Florida law, voters must do this at least 29 days before the Primary Election to vote in that party’s primary contests.
Remember these dates:
Primary Election:
Deadline to Register: July 25
Election day: August 23
General Election:
Deadline: October 11
Election Day: November 8
Register to vote: https://vote.gov/
Learn more about the Florida elections:
Abortion Resources
For information on abortions
Find Verified Abortions Providers
Help for Paying for an Abortion
State-by-State Guide for Abortion Laws
Information on Fake Clinics (aka crisis pregnancy centers)
Sources of Information
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Southeastern Pennsylvania Et Al..” Legal Information Institute. Legal Information
Institute. Accessed July 6, 2022.
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Which Overturns the 1973 Roe v. Wade Decision.” Society of Women Engineers, June
28, 2022.
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Associated Press, May 3, 2022.
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“U.S. Reports: Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973).” Accessed July 6, 2022.
Carlton W. Reeves, United States District Judge. “Jackson Women's Health Org. V. Dobbs.”
Legal research tools from Casetext, May 24, 2019.
JUSTICE O'CONNOR, JUSTICE KENNEDY, concurring in part and dissenting in part.
JUSTICE STEVENS, concurring in part JUSTICE BLACKMUN, with whom JUSTICE
WHITE CHIEF JUSTICE REHNQUIST, and with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE JUSTICE
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Available.” Census.gov, October 8, 2021.
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