Taking Back Our Stolen History
Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade in Dobbs Decision – Returns Abortion to State Lawmakers
Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade in Dobbs Decision – Returns Abortion to State Lawmakers

Supreme Court Overrules Roe v. Wade in Dobbs Decision – Returns Abortion to State Lawmakers

WASHINGTON, DC – The Supreme Court overruled Roe v. Wade on Friday, holding in the Dobbs case that the Constitution does not include a right to abortion and returning the issue of abortion laws and regulations to state legislatures. The nation erupted in cries of joy and tears of frustration.

Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the Supreme Court in Friday’s 5-4 decision:

Abortion presents a profound moral question. The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return the authority to the people and their elected representatives.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences. And far from bringing about a national settlement of the abortion issue, Roe and Casey have enflamed debate and deepened division.”
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” the ruling stated.
Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan  filed a joint dissent.

“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens,” the dissenters wrote.

The case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was filed after Mississippi enacted HB 1510, the Gestational Age Act, in 2018. The law banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in medical emergencies and in the cases where there was severe fetal abnormality.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization provides abortions up to 16 weeks and filed a lawsuit immediately after the law went into effect.

The abortion clinic was successful in the lower courts and injunctions were put in place to prevent the law from being enforced, based on the 1992 decision in Casey v. Planned Parenthood, which barred states from enacting abortion bans prior to fetal viability.

Mississippi took the case to the Supreme Court, arguing that both Roe and Casey should be overturned. They cited evidence that fetuses can feel pain as early as ten weeks. Oral arguments were made before the court in December, 2021.

On May 2, 2022, a draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico. In the opinion, he wrote that “it is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Roe was handed down in 1973 in a 7-2 decision, holding that the U.S. Constitution includes a constitutional right to abortion, despite the fact that abortion is not found in the text, structure, or history of the Constitution, and the nation went more than 180 years without ever noticing it existed. It has been one of the most divisive legal issues in American history.

An early draft of Alito’s opinion leaked in May, the first such leak of a full opinion in the 233-year history of the Supreme Court, leading the left to violent protests, including destroying a pro-life center in Wisconsin, vandalizing churches, and threatening protests at the home of conservatives justices in violation of federal law.

These threats have culminated in what was almost an assassination attempt of Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which went seemingly unnoticed by President Joe Biden – who did not speak out to condemn it – and has led to rapid action on a new federal law to protect the justices. The court majority evidently stood firm against the threats and public pressure, overruling Roe and the later revision of Roe in 1992, Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

With Roe overruled, the issue of abortion now goes back to the states to pass whatever restrictions on abortions the voters of each state choose to adopt.

Alito’s majority opinion is 79 pages long.

CASE: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, No. 19-1392 in the Supreme Court of the United States.

Nearly 50 years post-Roe v. Wade and 30 years post-Planned Parenthood v. Casey, it is clear that both cases are political, not constitutional, decisions. Both Roe and Casey were dependent upon the claim that abortion is part of a right to “privacy” within the substantive due process protections of the 14th Amendment. But neither case relied upon a recognizable or legitimate due process test. Pre-Roe, the court required such rights of due process to be “established beyond debate as an enduring American tradition” and “implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.”

Post-Roe, the court reiterated these pre-Roe standards and additionally stated that substantive due process rights must reflect a “careful ‘respect for the teachings of history [and] solid recognition of the basic values that underlie our society.’”

Roe v Wade was 7-2 opinion authored by Justice Blackmun that barred states from regulating abortion in the first trimester, allowed for some regulation in the second, and permitted total bans in the third.

However, there are elements of the ruling that are rarely discussed, possibly on purpose.

Blackmun’s ruling included a few elements that gave precedent to Alito’s striking of the decision.

The Right to Privacy regarding abortion is not only not Absolute, but it all hinges upon proving the personhood of the unborn. At the time, science had not progressed to a point experts would weigh in on such an idea of the personhood of the unborn. However, has that been proven, according to Blackmun’s opinion, the woman seeking an abortion would “no longer be alone in her personhood.”

In his original opinion on Roe, Blackmun says, “If the suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant’s case, of course, collapses.”

Blackmun gave room for the evolution of scientific concepts regarding gestation and fetal development. In the original opinion, Blackmun wrote, “when those trained in the respective disciplines of medicine, philosophy, and theology, are unable to arrive at any consensus, the judiciary, at this point [1972] in the development of man’s knowledge, is not in a position to speculate to the answer [as to when life begins]. Today’s leaps and bounds in medical science today would suggest they can.”

Planned Parenthood v. Casey replaced Roe’s standard of review with an undue burden standard. Four justices dissented at this time, saying Roe should be struck down.

Under the Casey ruling, the Court determined viability in the second and third trimesters and the absence of a woman’s personhood at a reasonable point.

Casey was a plurality ruling as well, and in the second ruling in the case, abortion in the first trimester was regulated. Under Casey, states could far more easily regulate abortions at any time during a pregnancy.

Under Casey, any abortion regulation would now be presumed constitutional unless someone could prove that it imposed undue and significant burdens on a woman’s ability to access an abortion.

Since that 1989 Casey ruling, the groundwork has been laid for this week’s historic decision to overturn Roe and return the full framework of abortion legislation to the state level.

These factors have rarely been discussed at length by the majority. Doing so would not have supported the rhetoric of pro-abortion rights and the desire to control the outcome at the federal level.

The 2022 ruling on Roe v. Wade was a win for the innocent and unborn.  This victory could never have come about without the Presidency of Donald Trump. President Trump ended up replacing three Supreme Court justices during his term in office. – Joe Hoft (The Gateway Pundit)

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But, Friday’s news revealed a deeper issue in America. It highlighted the presence of pure ignorance and the absence of personal responsibility. The headlines, statements, social media posts, protests, and broadcasts highlighted a problem infecting the nation faster than the recent COVID-19 pandemic.

Democrats, celebrities, and the mainstream media led the way as they decried the ruling, calling it a revocation of the Constitutional rights of the American people. Many claim Alito’s ruling diminishes such rights and freedoms. Former Disney Child Star Selena Gomez amplified this narrative on Friday, posting on Twitter that she felt rights were being removed. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also shared this misinformation when she said, “American women today have less freedom than their mothers.”

If you read the opinion issued by the Court, those claims can be refuted and clarified as an act of empowering the American people, despite claims from President Biden and others.

Alito said, “Roe was on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided, Casey perpetuated its errors, and those errors do not concern some arcane corner of the law of little importance to the American people. Rather, wielding nothing but “raw judicial power,”… the Court usurped the power to address a question of profound moral and social importance that the Constitution unequivocally leaves for the people.”

It was his way of pointing out that the Court was not the arbiter of access to life-altering decisions such as abortion, nor the body to determine the right to oversee such choices. The Court decided to return the right of people to govern such things within their state of residence, powered by the impact of their votes.

Alito clarified this by saying, “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” Alito goes on to clarify that in returning to the basis of the Constitution if the Court is to uphold the right of abortion, it then forces a specific theory on the question, what is life?

“Our opinion is not based on any view about if and when prenatal life is entitled to any of the rights enjoyed after birth. The dissent, by contrast, would impose on the people a particular theory about when the rights of personhood begin. According to the dissent, the Constitution requires the States to regard a fetus as lacking even the most basic human right—to live—at least until an arbitrary point in a pregnancy has passed. Nothing in the Constitution or in our Nation’s legal traditions authorizes the Court to adopt that ‘theory of life,’” Alito stated.

He noted that neither the Constitution nor any legal tradition allows the Supreme Court to adopt a “theory of life” which would constitute the exact moment a fetus is declared a person. In essence, the Court does not want to be tasked to hold to a moral position that requires them to determine if a specific life does or does not have value.

Alito clearly stated throughout his opinion that the “theory of life,” or the decision of when a life becomes viable and eligible for rights, is not defined nor supported in the U.S. Constitution.

“We therefore hold that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives.”

Despite Alito’s clear and defined details, the government and the media continue to push a narrative that says that abortion is a “constitutional right.”

On Friday, President Biden made the false claim while addressing the nation, spreading misinformation and stoking heavy emotional responses from Americans.

Others claim that this ruling is nothing more than a gateway to end access to contraception, same-sex marriage, and other rights. While there is never a guarantee that those rights would not face opposition in the Court, Alito addresses these concerns directly. 

Robert Reich, a professor at Berkeley, amplified those claims that the removal of other rights will directly follow this ruling.

Alito refutes this directly within his written opinion. 

Alito writes, “Finally, the dissent suggests that our decision calls into question Griswold, Eisenstadt, Lawrence, and Obergefell. But we have stated unequivocally that ‘[n]othing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.’ We have also explained why that is so: rights regarding contraception and same-sex relationships are inherently different from the right to abortion because the latter (as we have stressed) uniquely involves what Roe and Casey termed ‘potential life.’”

He clarifies that the ruling that overturned Roe V Wade was based upon the term potential life. Alito makes clear again that the Court is not willing to accept a position as a demigod responsible for adjudicating what constitutes the beginning of life. 

Others claim that Court’s ruling removes power from women, demeaning their value and authority over their bodies. California Congressman Eric Swalwell tried to allude that the ruling set women’s rights back 50 years!

Congressman Adam Schiff said, “The Court’s decision to overturn Roe endangers women everywhere, by taking away their right to make their own health care choices.”

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