Abortion in the United States: The Moral and Legal Landscape

This book explores the seismic shift brought about by the 2022 US Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which dramatically changed the constitutional standing of abortion decisions set in place by Roe v. Wade 50 years earlier. The authors describe the history of US Supreme Court’s decision-making around abortion and some of its attendant considerations, including the constitutional right to privacy, moral obligations to protect life, and determinations about when life begins. When Dobbs was decided, legal control over abortion was returned to the states, resulting in wildly divergent access to abortion across the nation. As important, Dobbs raised a host of additional legal and moral questions that will no doubt be the focus of many future courtroom and legislative debates. This text is designed for undergraduate students across a range of academic disciplines. It lays bare the complicated moral dimensions of the competing arguments about abortion and how these considerations have fared in legal decisions, so students can make sense of them for themselves.