Yesterday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which concerns a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy—the biggest threat to Roe v. Wade in the past 50 years. Roe and its progeny hold that a person’s right to end their pregnancy before viability is a rule of law and a component of liberty that cannot be renounced. 

Although we are unable to predict the outcome, listening to the arguments of counsel and the questions of the justices made it impossible not to worry that the Court will ultimately uphold the Mississippi law. Even if the Court declines to expressly overrule Roe, the impact would remain the same: approximately 20 other states would pass legislation restricting access to abortion and reproductive healthcare. This, in turn, would increase the undue burden on pregnant people to obtain necessary care in these states, as well as in any state that would continue to provide these services.  

Although there are several, one quote from Justice Sotomayor was particularly telling:   

So when does the life of a woman and putting her at risk enter the calculus? Meaning, right now, forcing women who are poor – and that’s 75 percent of the population and a much higher percentage of those women in Mississippi who elect abortions before viability – they are put at a tremendously greater risk of medical complications and ending their life, 14 times greater to give birth to a child full term, than it is to have an abortion before viability. And now the state is saying to these women, we can choose not only to physically complicate your existence, put you at medical risk, make you poorer by the choice because we believe what? 

We can expect a decision in June 2022. Meanwhile, as a nonpartisan and pro-choice organization, Lawyers Club will continue to advocate for reproductive justice and liberty for all.