The Constitutionalism and Politics Working Group is delighted to invite you to its workshop on the US Supreme Court’s decision, Dobbs v Jackson Women's Health Organization. A plethora of speakers will present their critical thoughts on the decision and its implications, followed by discussion.
Description
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the 2022 Supreme Court case that reversed Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennssylvania v. Casey, the decisions that originally asserted the fundamental rights to an abortion prior to the viability of the foetus. Dobbs v. Jackson states that the U.S. Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives. This statement indicates not only an originalist reading of the XIV Amendment, and that the constitutional rights to privacy does not entail women’s choice to interrupt pregnancy, but also a more democratic constitutional approach. But is what the conservative majority of the Supreme Court decided indeed what the people expect from an abortion regulation?
The workshop, after short initial interventions, aims at discussing the controversial questions raised by Dobbs: the divide between constitutional originalism and living constitutionalism; the tension between majoritarian politics and judicial review and between the latter and the will of the people; the relation between federal law and state law in the realm of rights protection; the evolving status of the right to abortion in the US and other contemporary constitutional democracies.