Roe v. Wade 49 Years Later

It’s no exaggeration to say American women are staring down the barrel of the biggest attack on their rights in generations. As the U.S. Supreme Court considers the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the future of women’s rights has not been this imperiled since before the court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade.

Saturday marks the 49th anniversary of that decision, which established a constitutional right to abortion up to about 24 weeks of pregnancy — and beyond, if the health of the mother is in danger. The Mississippi Legislature is trying to overturn Roe, by reducing the period to 15 weeks, with no exceptions for a mother’s life or health. Other states are seeking to restrict the period even more — or eliminate it entirely.

The court could uphold the Mississippi law or go further, by opening the door to state laws that are de facto prohibitions on abortion. In either case, it would be overturning a landmark decision, undermining a fundamental right and severely eroding public trust in the courts.

A decision is still months away, but based on the court’s ideological politics, it seems likely that there are three votes for Mississippi and three votes for Roe. The three others — John Roberts, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh — need to hear loudly and clearly that rolling back the firmly established and widely supported legal protections that have been the law of the land since Roe would be a historically colossal mistake, one that would forever tarnish the reputation of the Roberts court.

About 70 percent of Americans have no recollection of life before Roe. But for those of us who do, we remember other truths from that time: Women were almost universally denied equal opportunities in their careers and faced widespread discrimination. As a result, they were almost entirely absent from leadership positions in the public and private sectors.

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