Landmark Decisions: Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022)

The landmark Supreme Court decision that effectively nullified Roe v. Wade

Hello readers,

For this edition of Landmark Decisions, we will be covering a more recent ruling from the Supreme Court — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization (2022). This case overturned the legal precedent established in Roe v Wade (1973), which guaranteed the right to an abortion in the United States.

Like most of these articles, this is a highly abridged version of these events, and we suggest doing further research.

We will talk about the background of the case, the lower court decisions, the Supreme Court decision, and then the aftermath, including immediate and long-term effects.

Let’s get started.

Photo by Bernardo Lorena Ponte on Unsplash

Background of the Case

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization began with Mississippi’s passage of the Gestational Age Act in 2018 [1,2,3]. This law banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, significantly earlier than the viability standard established in Roe v. Wade (1973) and reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (19…