On the morning of May 17, the Supreme Court announced that it will hear a case pertaining to a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is a direct challenge to the 1973 landmark decision in Roe v. Wade, which legalized abortion nationwide prior to viability. Viability occurs at around 24 weeks of pregnancy. 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the first case in twenty years that will present the question of when abortion is constitutionally protected or if it should be constitutionally protected. 

When I first received the notification on my phone that morning, my stomach dropped. For the past 5 months, I have spent hours researching reproductive and abortion rights for an Independent Study. I immediately knew the consequences this case would have on abortion. Quite frankly, I am terrified. I am terrified that vital healthcare could be taken away from thousands of women. I am terrified that women will be pushed back to a time when they did not have control over their bodies. I am terrified that decades of progress will be lost with one single Supreme Court case. 

With the new 6-3 conservative majority on the court, the outcomes of this decision could be catastrophic to legal, safe abortion around the country. The worst-case scenario would be that Roe is overturned, and lawmakers at the state and federal level further restrict abortion in the U.S. Overnight, abortion would be banned in 24 states and heavily restricted throughout the country. 

In 2021 alone, over 500 anti-abortion laws have been passed in the United States, including SB-8 in Texas which bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. For most women, this is at around six weeks of pregnancy, before they even know they are pregnant. Laws such as this one are detrimental to abortion access. 

In March of 2018, Mississippi passed the Gestational Age Act, which banned abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy with exceptions for cases of fetal abnormality or medical emergencies, but not for cases of rape or incest. Within a day of Governor Phil Bryant signing the bill into law, the sole remaining abortion clinic in the state of Mississippi, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sued the state challenging the constitutionality of the bill. Then in November of 2018, Judge Carlton W. Reeves of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi placed an injunction on the state stopping the state from enforcing the Gestational Age Act. The Fifth Circuit upheld this injunction and in June of 2020, the state of Mississippi petitioned their appeal of the Fifth Circuit to the Supreme Court. 

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization will be heard during the Supreme Court’s next term, and a decision is likely to be delivered in spring or early summer of 2022.

 Until then, I urge you to stay informed on what is happening around the country surrounding abortion. @prochoiceamerica, @shoutyourabortion, and @guttmacherinstitute are three amazing Instagram accounts to follow to keep yourself informed. 

When Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed away last year, an alarm set off inside me. She is not only one of my biggest inspirations in life, but also one of the main reasons I decided to do an Independent Study on reproductive and abortion rights. One of my favorite quotes of hers that is particularly pertinent right now is “Fight for the things that you care about, but do it in a way that will lead others to join you.” Justice Ginsburg fought for reproductive rights and abortion. She spoke the truth about why abortion matters: Abortion is about equality and restrictions on abortion treat women as second-class citizens. The truth she spoke caused me to join. I’m asking you to join us both.