Goodbye Roe vs. Wade: Abortion is not a constitutional right

Abortion is not a right protected by the Constitution. This is the main conclusion of the decision Dobbs vs. Jackson. The Supreme Court has just published its decision, which overturns Roe vs. Wade.

The rulling was drafted by Judge Samuel Alito, and approved by a majority of 6 to 3. "The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, nor is such a right implicitly protected by any constitutional provision," the text reads. The main legal argument of Roe vs. Wade proclaimed that the practice of abortion was protected by the right to privacy, which is not expressly stated in the Constitution or any of its Amendments.

State laws against abortion

After the Roe decision (1973), abortion became a right. The States of the Union could not legislate to protect the life of the unborn child, since this would mean limiting the right of women to end the life of their children. From then on, some States placed limits on the practice of abortion. One such State laws, passsed by Mississippi, prohibited abortion beyond the 15th week of pregnancy. Jackson Women Health's Organization, took the law to the courts.

The issue went all the way to the Supreme Court, which has just ruled that abortion has no constitutional protection. Consequently, States may legislate to protect the life of the unborn without contravenning the Constitution. The sentence of Dobbs vs. Jackson proclaims: "It is time to abide by the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the elected representatives of the people".

The impact of the decision may go beyond the abortion issue. Samuel Alito alleges in the judgment that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution only protects those rights that were not being included in the Constitution, but were recognized at the time it was approved. 14th Amendment was enacted in 1869. At that time, abortion was not recognized as a right.

The point is that there are other practices, such as gay marriage or the use of contraceptives, which were not rights at the time. Dobbs vs. Jackson could also apply to these other cases. Thus, Supreme Court could rectify other issues, beyond abortion, such as gay marriage.

Backlash

Justices Neil Gorsuch, Clarence Thomas, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett voted in favor of Samuel Alito's ruling. John Roberts, presiding justice of the Supreme Court, also agrees to uphold the Mississippi law, but not to completely disenfranchise the practice of abortion. Roberts argues that to uphold the Mississippi law it was not necessary to repeal Roe vs. Wade.

The decision was announced some time ago by Politico and provoked a media storm. A Supreme Court employee leaked it to this progressive media with the aim of creating a controversy with sufficient force to condition the decision of the justices. The radical organization RuthSentUs went so far as to make public the addresses of the justices, information that was used by an individual to go to Brett Kavanaugh 's home with the alleged goal of killing him .