Over two years ago on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court overturned the ruling of Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), eliminating the constitutional right to abortion. Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) claims that the power belongs to the states to create their own laws regarding abortion. This heavily undervalues the importance of female bodily autonomy as abortion has fallen from the hands of the federal government to individual states. However, the Supreme Court’s decision affects more than just abortion due to the history behind Roe v. Wade.
In 1923, the Supreme Court broadly interpreted the Fourteenth Amendment, stating that the “liberty” people cannot be deprived of, encompasses privacy to sex, birth, marriage, and abortion. Following this, the Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) ruling established national marital privacy. The Court deemed Connecticut's state law which banned the sale, distribution, and possession of contraceptives unconstitutional.
The reasoning was that although not explicitly written in it, marital privacy was produced by the First, Third, Fourth, and Ninth Amendments in the Constitution. Justice Douglas argued that the penumbras, or zones, created those specific amendments in the Bill of Rights asserting marital privacy. Finally in Roe v. Wade (1972), the national right to have an abortion was put into place and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) established that restricting abortion is unconstitutional if an “undue burden” is placed on the mother.
The decision of Dobbs v. Jackson (2022) essentially removes all implication that the citizens of the United States have marital privacy, or privacy regarding matters between couples, interracial marriage, and sex. By using the same argument that privacy is not explicitly said in the Constitution, the Supreme Court can not just invalidate national abortion rights, but they may encroach upon all sorts of their citizens’ privacy. Roe v. Wade’s overturning is incredibly impactful to women’s right to bodily autonomy and the future privacy of all U.S citizens.
Source
https://www.britannica.com/event/Roe-v-Wade
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/496
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1964/496
https://www.csis.org/analysis/what-privacy-united-states-could-look-without-roe-v-wade
https://time.com/7019804/harris-trump-debate-abortion/
http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html#:~:text=The%20Supreme%20Court%2C%20however%2C%20beginning,procreation%2C%20marriage%2C%20and%20termination%20of