When “The Right to Life” Forgoes Quality of Life: Examining the Public Policy Impacts of Mississippi’s Abortion Ban on Women Post-Dobbs

Authors

Eleanor Condelles

First Page

207

Document Type

Article

Abstract

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court eliminated the right to abortion. Its ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. overturned Roe v. Wade and was the culmination of a decades-long attack on abortion rights and accessibility. Without a federal abortion standard, it is now up to each state to determine women’s access to abortion. This system will produce a tiered structure of abortion access, causing significant health and socioeconomic burdens for women generally and reinforcing fundamental social inequities. Women of means will find ways around the Dobbs decision; others, who lack finances, childcare, or the ability to travel for services, will not be so fortunate. In this new reality, low-income women and women of color will suffer the most.

This article begins by offering contextual backgrounds to three seminal cases in the abortion rights movement. Part II examines how Mississippi’s near total abortion ban will cause unique and painful harm to its marginalized women and will have negative public policy outcomes generally. Finally, Part III discusses beneficial policy initiatives in the post-Roe landscape.

Recommended Citation

Eleanor Condelles, When “The Right to Life” Forgoes Quality of Life: Examining the Public Policy Impacts of Mississippi’s Abortion Ban on Women Post-Dobbs, 30 Buff. Hum. Rts. L. Rev. 207 (2024).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/bhrlr/vol30/iss1/4