WASHINGTON (KNX) — The U.S. Supreme Court issued a final decision Friday in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, overturning the constitutional right to abortion previously established by Roe v. Wade in the 1970s.
It puts the court at odds with a majority of Americans who favored preserving Roe, according to opinion polls. Two-thirds of Americans said they wanted Roe v. Wade kept in place, according to CBS News polling.
Alito, in the final opinion issued Friday, wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 decision that reaffirmed the right to abortion, were wrong the day they were decided and must be overturned.
“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,” Alito wrote.
Authority to regulate abortion rests with the political branches, not the courts, Alito wrote.
Joining Alito were Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. The latter three justices are Trump appointees. Thomas first voted to overrule Roe 30 years ago.
Chief Justice John Roberts would have stopped short of ending the abortion right, noting that he would have upheld the Mississippi law at the heart of the case, a ban on abortion after 15 weeks, and said no more.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan — the diminished liberal wing of the court — were in dissent.
“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” they wrote.
The ruling is expected to disproportionately affect minority women who already face limited access to health care, according to statistics analyzed by The Associated Press.
Dobbs v. Jackson concerns Thomas E. Dobbs, the state health officer of the Mississippi Department of Health, and a health clinic that battled over a Mississippi law banning all abortions over 15 weeks gestational age, except in medical emergencies and in the case of severe fetal abnormality. This is earlier than abortion access established by Roe, which allows abortions up the point of fetal viability, or a fetus’ ability to survive outside of its mother’s uterus, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.
In May, POLITICO published a leaked draft opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade case. It appeared to have support from the majority of the conservative-leaning court. This final opinion is in line with the draft.
Chief Justice John Roberts has ordered an investigation into the leak.
While it was a majority decision on the court, recent polls have consistently found that the majority of Americans support access to abortions. Most recently, a USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that 61% of respondents were opposed to overturning Roe v. Wade. In that poll, 78% said they would be opposed to a nationwide ban on abortion and 56% said they would be in favor of ensuring access to abortions nationwide.
Respondents, however, said that the economy would be a more significant factor regarding who they plan to vote for in the upcoming November midterm elections.
Out of the nine justices on the court, three conservative justices – Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – were appointed by former President Donald Trump during his single term in office. Trump also appointed many federal judges, including “nearly as many powerful federal appeals court judges in four years as [former Democrat president] Barack Obama appointed in eight,” according to the Pew Research Center.
Since the leaked draft opinion was published, lawmakers attempted and failed to codify abortion rights into law and pro-choice protesters gathered across the nation to urge the court not to overturn Roe.
According to the Guttmacher Institute, abortion will be banned in 26 states after the fall of Roe. Last year, an Audacy investigation found that states with strict abortion laws do not necessarily have fewer abortions. Indeed, a recent Guttmacher study found that Mississippi – which has strict laws at the center of the Dobbs v. Jackson case – had one of the highest increases in abortion rates (40%) from 2017 to 2020.
"The Supreme Court not only reversed nearly 50 years of precedent," President Obama said in a statement, "It relegated the most intensely personal decision someone can make to the whims of politicians and ideologues—attacking the essential freedoms of millions of Americans."
"In the Congress, Republicans are plotting a nationwide abortion ban. They cannot be allowed to have a majority in the Congress to do that, but that's their goal," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said following the Court's decision.
In his concurring opinion, Justice Clarence Thomas suggested the high court reconsider Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell — the rulings that currently protect access contraception, bar punishments for same-sex relationships, and permit same-sex marriages.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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