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Abstract: 

In this article, the editor of Sex Offender Law Report examines a range of legal and practical implications of the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The majority in Dobbs extended the ideal of personal liberty on which the nation was founded to any unborn “potential” life to the same extent that the Court reduced the liberty rights of actual living women—women who have aged long enough to bear children—the very “potential” lives that certain state laws, with the blessings of the Court, insist they bring to term regardless of any threat to their own health and safety. Thus, roughly half of the individuals participating in the American democratic experiment no longer have the constitutional protections necessary to be agents of their own fates. The Dissent noted the deleterious effects of the decision for women: “One result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens. Yesterday, the Constitution guaranteed that a woman confronted with an unplanned pregnancy could (within reasonable limits) make her own decision about whether to bear a child, with all the life-transforming consequences that act involves.” [597 U.S. __ at 4 (Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., dissenting)].

Keywords: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization; Roe v. Wade

Affiliations:  1: Editor, Sex Offender Law Report.