BY STEFANIE LINDQUIST | The U.S. Supreme Court’s denial of abortion rights in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health is leading pro-abortion advocates to seek other legal pathways to protect reproductive rights. Just one week after the Court’s ruling, there’s a flurry of litigation in state courts. Lawsuits in Idaho, Utah, Kentucky and Florida all assert that state constitutions protect the right to get an abortion.
A Florida judge temporarily blocked the state’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks on June 30. Leon County Judge John Cooper said that the Florida ban, set to take effect on July 1, violated the state constitution’s privacy provision, which guaranteed that “Every natural person has the right to be let alone and free from governmental intrusion into the person’s private life.”
This and other similar state court cases demonstrate the rising importance of state constitutions, which often protect citizens’ right to privacy more explicitly than the U.S. Constitution.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization on June 24 that there is no constitutional right to abortion: “The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
Without the federal constraint of the Roe v. Wade precedent, state legislatures will be free to craft their own abortion regulations, subject only to each state constitution. State Supreme Courts play a key role in ensuring that state laws are legal and aligned with individual state constitutions. But their key role is often overshadowed by public attention on major federal courts—especially the U.S. Supreme Court.
(Click here to read more)
