Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization

Facts

Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, enacted in 2018, prohibited abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy except in medical emergencies or cases of severe fetal abnormality. The Mississippi Legislature made factual findings supporting the Act, including that only six countries besides the United States permitted elective abortion after 20 weeks gestation, and detailed fetal development milestones. The legislature found that at 5-6 weeks gestational age, a fetal heartbeat begins; at 8 weeks, movement begins in the womb; at 9 weeks, basic physiological functions are present; at 10 weeks, vital organs begin functioning; at 11 weeks, the diaphragm develops; and at 12 weeks, the fetus has taken on human form in all relevant respects. The legislature also found that most abortions after 15 weeks employ dilation and evacuation procedures involving surgical instruments to crush and tear the unborn child, which it deemed a barbaric practice. On the day the Act was enacted, Jackson Women’s Health Organization and one of its doctors filed suit in Federal District Court alleging the Act violated constitutional precedents. At the time Roe was decided in 1973, 30 states prohibited abortion at all stages, and by 1868 when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified, three-quarters of states had criminalized abortion at all stages of pregnancy.