Human Rights Campaign Outraged, Condemns Supreme Court Decision to Overturn Roe v. Wade

by Aryn Fields •

In its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a Mississippi Abortion Ban case, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned 50 years of established precedent

WASHINGTON — Today, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s largest lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ+) civil rights organization, blasted the Supreme Court’s dangerous and extreme decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case that challenged a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The state directly asked the Court to overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the two cases that set the legal precedent to abortion rights in 1973 and 1992 respectively.

In a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Mississippi, upholding the 15 week abortion ban and also eviscerated Roe v. Wade erasing the constitutional right to safe, legal abortion access. This decision will have a devastating impact on reproductive freedom for women, non-binary individuals and transgender men.

Interim President of The Human Rights Campaign, Joni Madison, issued the following statement:

When the Supreme Court is willing to throw 50 years of precedent out the window, it proves that we are at an exceedingly dangerous, unprecedented moment. The Court’s majority opinion does not reflect the will of our nation—two thirds of whom support Roe v. Wade—but instead fulfills an extreme, out of step, ideological agenda. And it shows that all of our rights are on the line right now, as state lawmakers will be further emboldened to test the limits of our hard-won civil rights. Women are under attack, LGBTQ+ people are under attack, BIPOC people are under attack, and we are justifiably outraged. We cannot relent – we must fight back.”

Joni Madison, Interim Human Rights Campaign President

Earlier this month, HRC released a fact sheet that highlights the importance of the protections enshrined in Roe v. Wade to members of the LGBTQ+ community. The data shows that LGBTQ+ women who have been pregnant are more likely to have had unwanted or mistimed pregnancies than heterosexual women and are more likely to need abortion services as well. Specifically, the report found Lesbian (22.8%) and bisexual (27.2%) women who have been pregnant are more likely than heterosexual women (15.4%) who have been pregnant to have had an abortion according to a new analysis of the 2017-2019 National Survey for Family Growth (NSFG) conducted by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation.

Last year, in defense of both Roe and Casey in the Dobbs case, HRC Foundation joined an amicus brief led by the National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR) to the Supreme Court. The brief urged the Court to strike down the Mississippi law and discusses the impact abortion restrictions have on queer women, transgender men and non-binary people. It also lays out Roe and Casey centrality to the development of individual rights and equality case law, including in Obergefell v. Hodges, the landmark civil rights case that guaranteed marriage equality.

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