Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Mississippi's Gestational Age Act barred abortion after 15 weeks of gestation except in a medical emergency or a case of severe fetal abnormality. Jackson Women's Health Organization, an abortion clinic, and one of its doctors sued, arguing that the law violated Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey. Those precedents barred states from banning abortion before viability, and on that basis a federal district court blocked the law and the Fifth Circuit affirmed. The state's health officer, Dobbs, took the case to the Supreme Court, which heard argument on 1 December 2021.

The decision came on 24 June 2022. Justice Alito wrote the opinion of the Court, joined by Justices Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett. It held that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion, overruled Roe and Casey, and, in the Court's words, returned the authority to regulate abortion to the people and their elected representatives. Justices Thomas and Kavanaugh also wrote concurrences. Chief Justice Roberts concurred only in the judgment, and Justices Breyer, Sotomayor and Kagan filed a joint dissent.

Two studies published in JAMA in 2025 compared outcomes in states that then banned abortion with modeled expectations. Suzanne Bell and colleagues estimated that births in states with bans ran 1.7 percent above expected, about 22,180 additional births, with larger increases among Medicaid beneficiaries, unmarried people and racial and ethnic minority groups. Alison Gemmill and colleagues found infant mortality in 14 states with bans of 6.26 deaths per 1,000 live births against 5.93 expected, a relative increase of 5.6 percent, or about 478 more infant deaths. The increase was about 11 percent among Black infants and for deaths from congenital anomalies. Texas accounted for much of it; without Texas the estimates were smaller and less certain.