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U.S. Supreme Court Hears Landmark Abortion Rights Case

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4 min. read

On December 1, 2021, Julie Rikelman, Senior Director of the Center’s U.S. Litigation Program, stood before the Supreme Court and argued for abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a case challenging a Mississippi abortion ban. The case is the most consequential abortion case in generations and asks the justices to consider Roe’s core holding: the right of a woman to have an abortion up to the point of viability. The case was covered by dozens of sources, including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Washington Post, and CNN. 

Multiple sources, including NBC News, reported on Rikelman’s arguments, including her statement that “Mississippi’s ban on abortion, two months before viability, is flatly unconstitutional under decades of precedent.” Rikelman added that if the Court upheld Mississippi’s ban it would cause “profound damage to women’s liberty, equality, and the rule of law.” U.S. News also quoted Rikelman saying, “Allowing a state to take control of a woman’s body and force her to undergo the physical demands, risk and life-altering consequences of pregnancy is a fundamental deprivation of liberty.”

Reporting on the #AbortionIsEssential Rally outside the Court, the Associated Press reported how the crowd cheered when the Center’s president and CEO, Nancy Northup, said, “Four trips to the Supreme Court in six years is four trips too many. We are here to win.” 

Reuters quoted Shannon Brewer, the director of Jackson Women’s Health Organization and client of the Center, who also spoke at the rally, saying, “Guess what? When you make abortion illegal it does not stop abortion.” 

Learn more about Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. 

Media coverage of oral arguments: