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Dobbs And Democracy, Melissa Murray, Katherine A. Shaw

Articles

In Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Justice Alito justified the decision to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey with an appeal to democracy. He insisted that it was “time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.” This invocation of democracy had undeniable rhetorical power: it allowed the Dobbs majority to lay waste to decades’ worth of precedent, while rebutting charges of judicial imperialism and purporting to restore the people’s voices. This Article interrogates Dobbs’s claim to vindicate principles of democracy, examining both the intellectual pedigree …