• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Elizabeth Scalia
          • Michael R. Heinlein
          • Effie Caldarola
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Mark Viviano
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • Magazine Subscriptions
        • Archdiocesan Directory
  • CR Radio
        • CR Radio
        • Protagonistas de Fe
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
Pro-life demonstrators in Washington celebrate outside the Supreme Court June 24, 2022, as the court overruled the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision in its ruling in the Dobbs case on a Mississippi law banning most abortions after 15 weeks. (CNS photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

Supreme Court overturns Roe in anticipated Dobbs decision

June 24, 2022
By Carol Zimmermann
Catholic News Service
Filed Under: Feature, News, Respect Life, Supreme Court, World News

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Also see: Local pro-life leaders in Archdiocese of Baltimore respond to Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade

Pro-life demonstrators in Washington celebrate outside the Supreme Court June 24, 2022, as the court overruled the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion decision. (CNS photo/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters)

WASHINGTON (CNS) — In a 5-4 decision June 24, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned its nearly 50-year-old decision in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortion in this country.

The court’s 213-page ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization was not totally unexpected due to the leak of an opinion draft a month earlier. The ruling emphasizes that there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States.

The Dobbs case focused on an abortion clinic in Mississippi opposed to the state’s law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The court’s reversal of its long-standing abortion ruling brings abortion policy decisions to the state level. At least half of states plan to ban or restrict abortions with this decision in place.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the court’s opinion. Casey v. Planned Parenthood is the 1992 decision that affirmed Roe.

Alito was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

Chief Justice John Roberts, in a separate opinion, said he agreed with the majority that the Mississippi abortion restriction should be upheld, but he said the court should not have overturned its Roe decision.

Alito, writing for the majority, said: “The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.”

U.S. Catholic bishops who have supported a reversal of Roe immediately reacted positively to the court’s decision that comes at the end of this year’s term.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called the decision a “historic day in the life of our country, one that stirs our thoughts, emotions and prayers.”

“We pray that our elected officials will now enact laws and policies that promote and protect the most vulnerable among us,” said the June 24 statement by Los Angeles Archbishop José H. Gomez, USCCB president, and Baltimore Archbishop William E. Lori, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Pro-Life Activities.

“We give thanks to God for today’s decision … This just decision will save countless innocent children simply waiting to be born,” said the New York Catholic bishops in a statement shortly after the court’s opinion was released.

Protesters were outside the court when the ruling came down, as they have been for days, anticipating it. Those on both sides of issue were also at the court when the document first leaked.

The Dobbs opinion is similar to the leaked draft that called Roe “egregiously wrong from the start.”

Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan wrote a joint dissent that said: “Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”

They also noted that their dissent “with sorrow — for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection.”

When the court announced last year that it would take this case, after considering it more than a dozen times since 2020, the justices said they would only review one of the three questions presented to them: “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”

That point of viability — when a fetus is said to be able to survive on its own — was a key point in this case, because the Supreme Court has consistently ruled that states cannot restrict abortion before 24 weeks, or when a fetus could survive on its own.

A friend-of-the-court brief submitted by the USCCB stressed that abortion is not a right created by the Constitution and called it “inherently different from other types of personal decisions to which this court has accorded constitutional protection.”

Referring to the court’s major abortion decisions, the brief also warned that if the Supreme Court “continues to treat abortion as a constitutional issue,” it will face more questions in the future about “what sorts of abortion regulations are permissible.”


Also see

Ireland’s abortion rates rise 62 percent over 5 years; Catholic advocates call it ‘a tragedy’

Judge blocks defunding of some, but not all, Planned Parenthood groups

Is NFP finally breaking into medical schools?

Nearly one in three conceptions in England and Wales end in abortion, government figures reveal

Planned Parenthood

Judge blocks, for now, Planned Parenthood defunding provision backed by bishops

Report: US abortions continue post-Dobbs rise in part due to telehealth

Copyright © 2022 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Print Print

Share
Share on Facebook
Share
Share this
Pin
Pin this
Share
Share on LinkedIn

Primary Sidebar

Carol Zimmermann

Click here to view all posts from this author

For the latest news delivered twice a week via email or text message, sign up to receive our free enewsletter.

| MOST POPULAR |

  • Detroit archbishop fires theologians Ralph Martin, Eduardo Echeverría from seminary

  • Warsaw archbishop ‘devastated, crushed’ by priest’s arrest in brutal murder of homeless man

  • Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

  • Conference of Major Superiors of Men Men’s religious leaders confront change with fraternity and faith

  • Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

| Latest Local News |

Conference of Major Superiors of Men

Men’s religious leaders confront change with fraternity and faith

Sister Rose Sylvia Lindner, S.S.N.D., dies at 91

Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’

Archdiocese of Baltimore offers resources for parishes to assist migrants

Third annual gun buyback scheduled for Aug. 9

| Latest World News |

Pilgrimage of Peace

US prelates head to Japan on ‘Pilgrimage of Peace’ amid nuclear fears old and new

jubilee 2025

World will hear young people’s joy, shouting for peace on earth, pope says

Catholic leaders ICE

Report on alleged conditions at ICE’s Florida detention sites prompts Catholic leaders’ call for change

RUSSIAN-ORTHODOX-meeting

Pope Leo meets with top Russian Orthodox cleric amid war, strained relations

new york city shooting

‘Never get used to violence,’ says NY cardinal after mass shooting in building near St. Patrick’s

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • US prelates head to Japan on ‘Pilgrimage of Peace’ amid nuclear fears old and new
  • World will hear young people’s joy, shouting for peace on earth, pope says
  • Report on alleged conditions at ICE’s Florida detention sites prompts Catholic leaders’ call for change
  • Pope Leo meets with top Russian Orthodox cleric amid war, strained relations
  • ‘Never get used to violence,’ says NY cardinal after mass shooting in building near St. Patrick’s
  • Men’s religious leaders confront change with fraternity and faith
  • Sister Rose Sylvia Lindner, S.S.N.D., dies at 91
  • Radio Interview: The true story of ‘Xavier Rynne’
  • Massacre ‘of faithful in the house of God’ in Congolese Catholic church leaves 43 dead

Search

Membership

Catholic Media Assocation

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2025 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

en Englishes Spanish
en en