Thread by @LemieuxLGM

A non-celebratory thread with some of the most important points from the dissent -- it is no consolation that it is well done, but it is very clear-eyed about the radical implications of a fundamental right being crushed and this is worth highlighting

Anyone who says that Dobbs "sends the issue back to the states" is flatly lying. Under the majority's reasoning, a national ban on abortion from conception with no exceptions would be constitutional

Alito's repeated assertions that overruling Roe does not threaten any of the other privacy cases should not be taken seriously. The logic of the holding threatens them all, and Alito is a known liar on the subject

It is, as the dissent observes, remarkable that Alito cites the common law prohibition on abortion *after* quickening as a point in favor of overruling Roe. THAT'S THE HOLDING IN ROE!

Perhaps the most important point in the dissent. "Originalism," as practiced by the Republican majority, ipso facto means treating women as second-class citizens, as they were when the 14th Amendment was ratified ("by men.")

If the majority's theory that the 14st Amendment must be interpreted as it was generally understood when it was ratified, then Loving v. Virginia was wrongly decided. That's a simple fact.

"And liberty may require it, this Court has repeatedly
said, even when those living in 1868 would not have recognized the claim—because they would not have seen the person making it as a full-fledged member of the community"

"Think of someone telling you that the Jenga tower simply will not collapse."

Distinguishing Roe from the other privacy precedents is just an ipse dixit: "if the majority is right in its legal analysis, all those decisions were wrong, and all those matters properly belong to the States too—whatever the particular state interests involved."

"As a matter of constitutional method, the majority’s commitment to replicate in 2022 every view about the meaning of liberty held in 1868 has precious little to recommend it."

I will quote less from the stare decisis passages because I think Roe stands on its own, but Coney Barrett's "but you can drop the baby off at the fire station!" argument is given the quick, contemptuous dismissal it merits

Another very important point: "health outcomes in
Mississippi are abysmal for both women and children." And thinking that red states that ban abortion will suddenly decide to provide more assistance to mothers and children is pure fantasy

"a state-by-state analysis by public health professionals shows that States with the most restrictive abortion policies also continue to invest the least in women’s and
children’s health."

Very glad to see the dissent point out that the claim (not just the majority but way too many poorly informed pundits) that the U.S. was some kind of outlier on abortion policy is nonsense that requires willful ignorance about how abortion law in Europe actually works in practice

This response to the majority's invocation of Brown is devastating: "if the Brown Court had used the majority’s method of constitutional construction, it might not ever have overruled Plessy, whether 5 or 50 or 500 years later."

Alito's opinion is shoddy hackwork from beginning to end, but as one of my students pointed out last quarter, bless her, its discussion of the reliance interests created by Roe is particularly weak and revealing

"Women have relied on Roe and Casey in this way for 50 years. Many have never known anything else. When Roe and Casey disappear, the loss of power, control, and dignity will be immense."

A useful reminder that the cynical liar Sam Alito asserted that the Court was not allowing Texas to nullify Roe v. Wade, which should strongly inform how we view his bare assertions that the logic of this holding will not be applied to any other line of doctrine

In conclusion, Dobbs is bad law that will have horrible consequences, and is the product of a minority faction having seized a Supreme Court supermajority despite its failure to persuade the public of its views. The Court's legitimacy with the public will continue to erode.

And, yeah, fuck every last one of the fancy liberal lawyers who knowingly supported this outcome, whatever they may try to tell you now

https://twitter.com/LeahLitman/status/1540364194087936004