Document Type
Brief
Case Name
Thomas E. Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
Publication Date
7-2021
Abstract
No. 19-1392
Thomas E. Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization
On Writ of Certiorari to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
From the Summary of Argument
Mississippi’s 2018 Gestational Age Act, which prohibits abortions after 15 weeks gestational development (with exceptions for medical emergency or fetal abnormality) is quite modest in impact, more permissive than the vast majority of the laws on abortion around the world (including in all but three European nations), and appears to be broadly popular. But it seems to clearly violate the Supreme Court-made law of abortion, which forbids the State from imposing an “undue burden” on a woman’s ultimate authority to obtain an abortion prior to fetal viability. While it has never been clear what constitutes an “undue burden” in the context of abortion, it seems that a previability ban runs afoul of this standard. This case thus offers the cleanest opportunity since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 for the Court to revisit its deeply flawed and harmful jurisprudence.
Recommended Citation
Hacker, Heather Gebelin and Snead, O. Carter, "Brief for Professors Mary Ann Glendon and O. Carter Snead as Amici Curiae in Support of Petitioners" (2021). Court Briefs. 73.
https://scholarship.law.nd.edu/sct_briefs/73
Included in
Biotechnology Commons, Courts Commons, Jurisprudence Commons, Supreme Court of the United States Commons
Comments
Amici curiae are professors of law with extensive experience in teaching, research, and public service concerning the governance of science, medicine, and biotechnology in the name of ethical goods both domestically and internationally.
O. Carter Snead is Professor of Law, Concurrent Professor of Political Science, and Director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame. He is author, most recently, of What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard University Press 2020). He served as General Counsel to the U.S. President’s Council on Bioethics, as U.S. Permanent Observer to the Council of Europe’s Steering Committee on Bioethics, led negotiations on behalf of the United States government at UNESCO for the Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights, and served a four-year appointed term on UNESCO’s International Bioethics Committee, the only bioethics advisory body in the world with a global mandate. He is an elected fellow of the Hastings Center.
Table of Authorities includes:
O. Carter Snead, What It Means to be Human: The Case for the Body in Public Bioethics (Harvard U. Press 2020).