Dear team,

This month marks four years since we filed our case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, challenging a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. When we filed the case, we didn't anticipate it would become the most consequential abortion rights case to reach the U.S. Supreme Court in a generation.

I want to recap where the case stands and what it means for the future of abortion access in the United States.

But first, will you make a gift of $35 or more to continue to fight for reproductive rights around the world? Your support is vital to our work, and I know we can count on you in such a consequential year.

How did we get here? When the Mississippi legislature passed its ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy in 2018, it ignored the constitutional right to abortion first recognized in Roe v. Wade—a right that the Supreme Court has reaffirmed time and again in the nearly 50 years since that landmark decision.

Thanks to the support of people like you, we took swift legal action and the Mississippi ban was blocked the day after it was signed into law.

It was later struck down in both a district court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. But the state of Mississippi petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court—and in May 2021, the Court agreed to review the ban.

The Road to the Supreme Court: Last December, my colleague Julie Rikelman, the Center's Senior Litigation Director, argued our Mississippi case before the Supreme Court to defend Roe v. Wade and our constitutional right to access abortion care—and now we await a decision.

This ban is part of a nationwide effort by anti-abortion politicians and activists to outlaw abortion entirely, state by state, and law by law.

Our client in this case, Jackson Women's Health Organization, is the last abortion clinic in the state, meaning over 90% of the state's 600,000 women of reproductive age do not have an abortion clinic in their county.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization represents the biggest threat to abortion rights in the United States in decades—but no matter how the Court rules, we are ready and we know that fight is far from over.

As we await a decision from the Supreme Court in this case, we must be prepared for whatever challenges we may face next. Please make a gift by March 31 to protect reproductive rights for all.

In solidarity,

Hillary Schneller
Senior Staff Attorney, U.S. Litigation