Roe v. Wade by State
Note
The Supreme Court has voted to strike down the landmark Roe v. Wade decision, according to an initial draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito circulated inside the court and obtained by POLITICO. The court’s holding will not be final until it is published, likely in the next two months. This ruling comes from the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.
Critical Analysis
Based on the map above right, if Roe v. Wade is overturned, identify how many states have trigger laws that will active when Roe is overturned to ban abortion.
Describe the regions of the country that have the most Roe trigger laws.
Based on the map above and to the left, describe the regions of the United States with states with the highest level of popular support of legal abortion.
Identify any states that have trigger laws but where legal abortion is supported by a majority of the population.
Identify any states where legal abortion is opposed by a majority of the population, that do not have trigger laws.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, it would not outlaw abortion everywhere. Instead, states would be able to individually determine the procedure’s legality. Thirteen states across the country have signaled their readiness to ban abortion by passing so-called trigger laws, which would effectively ban abortions almost immediately after a decision from the Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Use the maps above to explain the likelihood of legal abortion in your state.
Based on the map above and the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson, how many states do you predict will have legal abortion in August of this year.
Describe what a proponent of states rights would say about the ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson.
Sometimes the Supreme Court overturns former Supreme Court precedent. For example, in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954). A unanimous Warren Court decided that a separate but equal policy of educational facilities for racial minorities, consistent with Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), violated the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause. Thus, they overturned the precedent set in 1896. How is Dobbs v. Jackson overturning Roe v. Wade analogous to Brown overturning Plessy? How is it different?
The 1857 Dred Scott v. Sandford decision declared both that Black Americans had no rights that a White man was bound to respect and that Congress had no power to prohibit human enslavement in the territories. The Dred Scott decision left the question of enslavement not to the national majority, which wanted to prohibit it from western lands, but to state and territorial legislatures. Explain how the Dred Scott decision compares to the Dobbs decision?
Learning Extension
Read this short history of overturned Supreme Court precedents.
Action Extension
Express your opinion on this ruling to your state legislators and to your U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives.