Supreme Court’s Overruling of Roe and Casey

The New York City Bar Association expresses its profound disappointment in the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of S.E. PA v. Casey. Roe and Casey have been the bedrock cases supporting reproductive freedom in this country for 50 years; today’s decision has transported us back to 1972, leaving women with less control over their bodies and reproductive health decisions than the generation that came before them. Today, 13 states with trigger laws have already banned abortions. Another 13 likely will ban or severely restrict abortion access in the coming weeks. That means that more than half of the around 64 million women and girls of reproductive age living in the United States will no longer be guaranteed the ability to make critical reproductive health decisions that are right for themselves and their families. As we stated in an amicus brief filed jointly with dozens of other women’s legal organizations in the Dobbs case, many of our nation’s abortion laws are now reminiscent of the Dark Ages. 

While we are fortunate that New York has strengthened its laws around reproductive rights, we firmly believe in the principle that everyone in this country should be at liberty to make private health care decisions and reproductive choices. We stand with those in other states – particularly Black, Indigenous and other people of color, immigrants, people living in poverty, and LGBTQ+ people – where obtaining reproductive health care has now become all but impossible. And we stand with the lawyers who are going to be called upon to represent clients – health care professionals, individuals seeking reproductive health care, and others – who are going to be swept into the justice system in a post-Roe world.