Yesterday, the Supreme Court of the United States’ ruling on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization dismantled the constitutional foundation giving pregnant people the right to choose whether or not to give birth. The decision allows states to ban abortion and criminalize anyone who assists a pregnant person in getting an abortion. 26 states have laws and amendments in place that ban or have a near-total ban on abortion following this decision. 

The City University of New York Law Review is committed to addressing the consequences of structural oppression, and to challenging these structures themselves. As such, we denounce the Supreme Court’s holding undoing 50 years of legal precedent that millions have relied on to plan their futures and families. The decision will have far-reaching and devastating legal and practical ramifications on those who can give birth, particularly the poor, people of color, and trans people. Justice Thomas’ concurrence called for the Supreme Court to “reconsider” its past rulings on contraception access, same-sex marriage, and consensual sex in same-sex relations, which implicates consequential constitutional privacy rights.  This decision’s reasoning was not grounded in notions of liberty or equality but in a white supremacist, sexist historical period where women, Black people and other people of color, the poor, and queer people had inferior, or no rights at all.

The Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade & Planned Parenthood of Southern Pennsylvania v. Casey is not the ultimate goal of a decades-long anti-choice movement. Banning abortion doesn’t stop people from getting them, it just forces them outside of the health care system. Dobbs creates a precedent for the destruction of many rights that advocates, community organizers, and attorneys have fought hard to secure and preserve.

A nationwide abortion ban is the “next frontier” of the anti-abortion movement. Political control of Congress and the Presidency can accomplish a nationwide abortion ban. Dobbs opens the door to a prospective nationwide ban based on fetal personhood and a significant increase in criminal prosecutions against pregnant people who miscarry.

We urge and support organized and sustained action of the pro-choice movement: 

• Local elected officials and state legislators to pass laws supporting the right to choose and creating resources for pregnant people traveling out of state.
• State legislators to pass legislation that protects abortion providers, or anyone who assists someone seeking an abortion from being extradited to states that criminalize abortion to face charges.
• Finalize and certify the Equal Rights Amendment to strengthen abortion rights and equality arguments.
• Congressional representatives to move towards a constitutional amendment that explicitly calls for the right to substantive due process and codify the right to abortion into law. 
• Donate to abortion funds and support organizations that provide this essential health care, without fear of reprisal and threat to funding sources.
• Assist people needing transportation to travel to states that continue to remain a safe haven for those seeking an abortion from out of state to offset the costs of travel, if you are able.

In solidarity,

CUNY Law Review