Abortion Rights: More to the Story than the United States Constitution
Description
The United States Supreme Court overturned the landmark decision Roe v. Wade in June of 2022 with the infamous case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Healthcare Center. This stripped US women of their right to abortion and committed a wide-scale human rights violation. While abortion rights in the US are commonly discussed as they relate to US law, this research explores how abortion bans more critically violate women’s international human rights as protected by international human rights treaties. The focus then shifts to examine what the impact might be if the US were to recognize safe abortion access as a human right. This recognition could, at minimum, protect women traveling to outside states for an abortion from extradition to their home states for prosecution. More extensively, this recognition could enable the US federal government to implement a nationwide law protecting abortion, ultimately contributing to efforts to stop perpetuating discrimination in healthcare.