The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case before the nation’s highest court on a restrictive Mississippi law, is the most consequential on women’s access to abortion since the court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.
But the legal case, over a law that makes most abortions illegal after 15 weeks of pregnancy, is by no means the first to challenge or chip away at Roe v. Wade. Here is a look at some of the most significant past rulings.
Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 1989
The 5-4 ruling gave states the right to impose new restrictions on abortion, upholding parts of a 1986 Missouri law relating to public resources being used to assist women in abortions not necessary to save their lives. The laws barred public employees from being involved and banned the use of public buildings, and separately required doctors to perform tests to determine whether the fetus can live outside the womb if the woman is at least 20 weeks pregnant.
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1992
In the draft opinion leaked in May, Justice Samuel Alito wrote that Casey should be overruled along with Roe v. Wade. In this decision, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the “essence” of the constitutional right to abortion outlined in Roe v. Wade while giving states new leeway to impose restrictions on the procedure. The 5-4 ruling upheld part of a Pennsylvania law regulating access to abortions while finding that laws prohibiting all or most abortions are unconstitutional, with the majority writing that Roe v. Wade established a “rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce.” The decision also set the standard that it was unconstitutional for states to ban abortions before “fetal viability,” estimated to be about 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Gonzales v. Carhart, 2007
The 5-4 decision upheld a federal law banning a method of abortion known by opponents of the procedure as “partial birth,” reversing course from a decision to strike down a similar state law seven years earlier in Stenberg v. Carhart. It was the first time the court backed a ban on a specific method of abortion, opening up doctors to criminal prosecution for performing the procedure. The federal law, enacted in 2003, prohibited a procedure known medically as “intact dilation and extraction” used to terminate pregnancies beginning at about 12 weeks.
Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, 2016
The Supreme Court struck down parts of a restrictive Texas law that required doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and clinics, which could have drastically reduced the number of abortion clinics in the state. The 5-3 decision was the court’s most sweeping since Planned Parenthood v. Casey. It found that Texas’ restrictions would place an “undue burden” on the ability to obtain an abortion. The decision curbed states’ ability to restrict and regulate abortion.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
By Victoria Kim
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