Skip to content
Center for Reproductive Rights
Center for Reproductive Rights

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
Donate
icon-hamburger icon-magnifying-glass Donate
icon-magnifying-glass-teal

Abortion and Liberty Rights: Spotlight on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

Center for Reproductive Rights - Center for Reproductive Rights - search logo
search Close Close icon
Center for Reproductive Rights -
Menu Close Menu Close icon
Donate

Primary Menu

  • About
    • Overview
    • Center Leadership & Staff
    • Pro Bono Program
    • Creative Council
    • Annual Reports
    • Contact Us
    • Careers
    • Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
  • Work
    • Overview
    • Litigation
    • Legal Policy and Advocacy
    • Resources & Research
    • Recent Case Highlights
    • Landmark Cases
    • World’s Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Issues
    • Overview
    • Abortion
    • Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights
    • Assisted Reproduction
    • Contraception
    • Humanitarian Settings
    • Maternal Health
    • COVID-19
  • Regions
    • Overview
    • Africa
    • Asia
    • Europe
    • Latin America and the Caribbean
    • United States
    • Global Advocacy
  • News
    • Latest News
    • Center in the Spotlight
    • Events
    • Press Releases
    • Press Room
    • Newsletters
  • Resources
    • Resources & Research
    • World Abortion Laws Map
    • After Roe Fell: Abortion Laws by State
  • Act
    • Overview
    • Give
    • Act
    • Learn
  • Donate
    • Make a Gift Now
    • Be a Champion
    • Join the Advocates Council
    • Become a Major Donor
    • Give Through Your Donor-Advised Fund
    • Make a Gift In Honor
    • Attend an Event
    • Leave a Legacy
    • More Ways to Give
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn

Related Content

Issues:

Abortion, Legal Restrictions

Regions:

United States

Work:

In the Courts

Type:

News, Story, Uncategorized

Case Archive

For updates on this case and others, explore our case archive here.

Follow the Center

Donate Now

Join Now

11.29.2021

In the Courts Abortion United States Story

Abortion and Liberty Rights: Spotlight on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health

Virginia Sobol
If the Supreme Court weakens the right to abortion, it will also undermine precedent that protects a broad range of liberty rights.

Share this Story

  • facebook
  • Twitter
  • linkedin
  • Email id
Joy Asico/Center for Reproductive Rights

The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized that any concept of liberty must include the right to make intimate decisions about family, relationships, bodily integrity, and autonomy. The right to abortion sits within that essential spectrum—and weakening it would also weaken the Constitution’s protections for liberty more broadly. 

In the Center for Reproductive Rights’ upcoming U.S. Supreme Court case, Mississippi has asked the Court to overturn Roe v. Wade—upending nearly 50 years of precedent—and find that there is no right to abortion in the Constitution. In taking up the case, for the first time since the Roe ruling in 1973, the Court has agreed to consider the constitutionality of a pre-viability abortion ban. 

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization—which will be argued at the Court December 1—is the most consequential abortion rights case in generations. And it carries far-reaching implications for U.S. liberty rights well beyond the right to abortion.

Read more about the case.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health OrganizationDobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization link

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

This consequential Supreme Court case will be argued on Wednesday, December 1. Listen to oral arguments at 10 a.m.

In amicus briefs (also known as “friend-of-the-court” briefs) filed in support of the  challenge to the law, constitutional law scholars and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) invoke the risk to the broad spectrum of liberty rights in urging the Court to strike down Mississippi’s law banning abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. 

Roe was a landmark decision recognizing that the decision to terminate a pre-viability pregnancy belongs to the individual, not the state. Roe not only made abortion legal in all 50 states, but it also strengthened the Supreme Court’s development of a constitutional framework that recognizes related liberty rights—including the right to same-sex marriage, to engage in private sexual conduct, and to use contraception.

The amicus briefs by constitutional law scholars and the ACLU assert that:

  • The right to abortion is clearly grounded in the Constitution and protected under the liberty guarantee in the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
  • Interwoven Court opinions have repeatedly and consistently reaffirmed the individual’s right to make decisions about family, child-rearing, contraception, and bodily integrity—including the decision of whether to have an abortion.
  • If the Supreme Court were to overturn Roe and Casey, it would also call into question dozens of other liberty decisions beyond abortion.

Highlights of the briefs and their arguments:

Constitutional Law Scholars

This brief by scholars who teach and write about constitutional law highlights the ways in which upholding Mississippi’s 15 week ban would destabilize the Constitution’s broader protections for liberty. 

Rally for abortion rights!

Abortion Is Essential: Rally for Our Rights - December 1Abortion Is Essential: Rally for Our Rights – December 1 link

Abortion Is Essential: Rally for Our Rights – December 1

Join us at the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday, December 1 at 7:30 a.m.

The scholars argue that overturning Roe or Casey “would mark a stunning reversal of the Due Process jurisprudence this Court has built over the past several decades, calling into question a host of other fundamental Due Process rights.” Bodily integrity rights, including protections against forced surgery or medical treatments, could be undermined. So could the right to direct the upbringing and education of one’s children; the right to engage in private sexual conduct; the right to use contraception; and the right to marry a person of the same sex.  

While the state of Mississippi argues for a cramped approach to defining liberty rights that would only look to the past, the scholars point out that “the Court has rejected Mississippi’s position that the specific rights the Due Process Clause protects are finite and definitively determined as of the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s ratification.” Read the brief by constitutional law scholars.

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU)

By stressing the interconnected and continuous nature of the Court’s liberty precedents, the ACLU’s brief rebuts Mississippi’s argument that abortion is “untethered to the Constitution and this Court’s privacy and liberty jurisprudence.”

“Abortion is not categorically different from liberty, privacy, and bodily integrity rights the Court has recognized as protected by the Fourteenth Amendment,” writes the ACLU in its brief to the Court. The organization—which is dedicated to the principles of liberty and equality embodied in the Constitution and the nation’s civil rights laws—discusses how the right to abortion is woven into the Constitution and the Court’s liberty jurisprudence, which protects a range of personal rights against state interference, and that there is no principled reason for eliminating that right.

The brief explains that “[T]he the jurisprudence that preceded Roe for fifty years, like the jurisprudence that has followed it in the fifty years since, sets out a consistent principle: that the Constitution protects the rights of all of us to make foundational decisions about personal and family life.”  

The ACLU cites nearly 100 years of the Court’s precedents that protect rights as diverse as refusing sterilization, marrying a person of a different race, and living with a chosen family group. The brief ties this line of cases to the Court’s long-standing protections for abortion,  which it explained in Casey flow from  “a promise of the Constitution that there is a realm of personal liberty which the government may not enter.”

The consistency of the Court’s liberty precedents, the brief argues, lends them extra weight. “These decisions are an essential part of the fabric of rights protecting individuals from government interference in their most intimate decisions. And their place in and deep connection to this established jurisprudence counsels heavily against overruling them.” Read the brief by the American Civil Liberties Union.

More than 50 amicus briefs were filed in support of the Center’s case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Click here to see the list.

Read more:

  • Report: Roe and Intersectional Liberty Doctrine

About the case:

  • Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization
  • Oral arguments: Listen to the livestream on December 1 @ 10a.m. ET.

Tags: mississippi abortion ban, supreme court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, Mississippi abortion law, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, liberty rights, liberty doctrine, U.S. Supreme Court, Mississippi, roe v. wade

Related Posts

U.S. Supreme Court Opinion: June Medical Services v. Russo

Read the Supreme Court's 2020 opinion in the June Medical Services v. Russo case.

Abortion,United States,In the Courts

Legal Experts Urge the Supreme Court to Strike Down Abortion Restriction in June Medical Case, Stressing Precedent and Rule of Law

Legal Experts Urge the Supreme Court to Strike Down Abortion Restriction Briefs by the American Bar Association, constitutional scholars, and...

Abortion,United States,In the Courts
Legal Experts Urge the Supreme Court to Strike Down Abortion Restriction in June Medical Case, Stressing Precedent and Rule of Law

Medical Groups, Legal Experts, People Who Had Abortions, and Advocates Join Fight Against Louisiana’s Anti-Abortion Law

ABA, AMA and other diverse supporters unite to urge U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Louisiana law designed to shut down...

Abortion, Legal Restrictions,United States,In the Courts

Sign up for email updates.

The most up-to-date news on reproductive rights, delivered straight to you.

Footer Menu

  • Careers
  • Privacy Policy
  • Contact Us

Center for Reproductive Rights
© (1992-2022)

Use of this site signifies agreement with our disclaimer and privacy policy.

Center for Reproductive Rights
This site uses necessary, analytics and social media cookies to improve your experience and deliver targeted advertising. Click "Options" or click here to learn more and customize your cookie settings, otherwise please click "Accept" to proceed.
OPTIONSACCEPT
Manage consent

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Functional
Functional cookies help to perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collect feedbacks, and other third-party features.
Performance
Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.
Analytics
Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
CookieDurationDescription
_ga2 yearsThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to calculate visitor, session, campaign data and keep track of site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookies store information anonymously and assign a randomly generated number to identify unique visitors.
_gat_UA-6619340-11 minuteNo description
_gid1 dayThis cookie is installed by Google Analytics. The cookie is used to store information of how visitors use a website and helps in creating an analytics report of how the wbsite is doing. The data collected including the number visitors, the source where they have come from, and the pages viisted in an anonymous form.
_parsely_session30 minutesThis cookie is used to track the behavior of a user within the current session.
HotJar: _hjAbsoluteSessionInProgress30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjFirstSeen30 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjid1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar. This cookie is set when the customer first lands on a page with the Hotjar script. It is used to persist the random user ID, unique to that site on the browser. This ensures that behavior in subsequent visits to the same site will be attributed to the same user ID.
HotJar: _hjIncludedInPageviewSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjIncludedInSessionSample2 minutesNo description
HotJar: _hjTLDTestsessionNo description
SSCVER1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for online advertising by creating user profile based on their preferences.
Advertisement
Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with relevant ads and marketing campaigns. These cookies track visitors across websites and collect information to provide customized ads.
CookieDurationDescription
_fbp3 monthsThis cookie is set by Facebook to deliver advertisement when they are on Facebook or a digital platform powered by Facebook advertising after visiting this website.
fr3 monthsThe cookie is set by Facebook to show relevant advertisments to the users and measure and improve the advertisements. The cookie also tracks the behavior of the user across the web on sites that have Facebook pixel or Facebook social plugin.
IDE1 year 24 daysUsed by Google DoubleClick and stores information about how the user uses the website and any other advertisement before visiting the website. This is used to present users with ads that are relevant to them according to the user profile.
IMRID1 year 24 daysThe domain of this cookie is owned by Nielsen. The cookie is used for storing the start and end of the user session for nielsen statistics. It helps in consumer profiling for online advertising.
personalization_id2 yearsThis cookie is set by twitter.com. It is used integrate the sharing features of this social media. It also stores information about how the user uses the website for tracking and targeting.
TDID1 yearThe cookie is set by CloudFare service to store a unique ID to identify a returning users device which then is used for targeted advertising.
test_cookie15 minutesThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net. The purpose of the cookie is to determine if the user's browser supports cookies.
Others
Other uncategorized cookies are those that are being analyzed and have not been classified into a category as yet.
CookieDurationDescription
adEdition1 dayNo description
akaas_MSNBC10 daysNo description
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional1 yearThe cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others1 yearNo description
geoEdition1 dayNo description
next-i18next1 yearNo description
SAVE & ACCEPT
Powered by CookieYes Logo
Scroll Up