[26] The abortion-rights movement in the United States initially emphasized the national policy benefits of abortion, such as smaller welfare expenses, slower population growth, and fewer illegitimate births.

[35][36] Chief Justice John Roberts was also considered part of the conservative majority, but he was a strong proponent of stare decisis, believing that even some wrongly decided cases should not be overturned,[37] and a staunch defender of the Court's reputation.

[40] In 2016, Senate Republicans led by Majority Leader Mitch McConnell prevented then-President Barack Obama from filling the vacancy left by the death of Justice Antonin Scalia.

[44] When Amy Coney Barrett replaced Ruth Bader Ginsburg in late 2020, the Court's ideological makeup shifted further, creating a 6–3 conservative majority and providing an opportunity to additionally limit or even overturn Roe and Casey by moving Roberts out of the "swing vote" role.

After Trump's inauguration, the ADF and the Federalist Society reportedly began working in secret with Christian and conservative politicians and lawyers to establish a network, similar to the ACLU's, to push challenges to Roe while introducing state legislation to reduce the period for abortion to 15 weeks or less.

[50] In March 2018, the Mississippi Legislature passed the Gestational Age Act, which banned any abortion operation after the first 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for a medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality but none for cases of rape or incest.

[51] The medical emergency exception allows abortions to save the life of a pregnant woman and in situations where "the continuation of the pregnancy will create a serious risk of substantial and irreversible impairment of a major bodily function".

[71] A response brief, which focused on two questions asked in opposition to the petition, was filed by Hillary Schneller from the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Jackson Women's Health Organization (JWHO).

"[79] Over 140 amici curiae briefs were submitted before oral argument in Dobbs, approaching the record set by Obergefell v. Hodges, in part to separate and concurrent lawsuits filed over the Texas Heartbeat Act, which effectively gave citizens of the state the means to enforce abortion bans through civil suits.

[95] Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to suggest that viability was not relevant to the holdings of either Roe or Casey, and that only a fair choice or opportunity to seek an abortion was constitutionally protected.

[103] In December 2023, The New York Times corroborated this, reporting that Roberts and Justice Stephen Breyer had been working on a compromise decision leaving Roe in place that would appeal to Kavanaugh when the leak disrupted their efforts.

[128][132][133] A man from California was arrested for attempted murder regarding an assassination plot targeting Kavanaugh near his home over the leak and a pending decision in a gun control case, New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v.

The final majority decision was substantially similar to the leaked draft, with only minor changes in the original arguments and rebuttals to Justices Stephen Breyer's, Elena Kagan's, and Sonia Sotomayor's joint dissenting opinion and John Roberts's concurrence in only the judgment.

"[169] They cited New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen ("Historical evidence that long predates [ratification] may not illuminate the scope of the right"), and wrote, "Had the pre-Roe liberalization of abortion laws occurred more quickly and more widely in the 20th century, the majority would say (once again) that only the ratifiers' views are germane.

The decisions primarily focused on standing rather than directly addressing constitutional matters and abortion-related issues; both allowed the Texas Heartbeat Act to remain in force while litigation continued in lower courts.

[216][217][218] According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, as of April 12, 2023, 15 states have de jure early-stage bans on abortion without exceptions for rape or incest: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

[235][236] In early 2022, while Dobbs was pending, the Vermont Legislature had already approved sending Proposal 5 to the referendum ballot in November 2022, which would amend the state's constitution "to guarantee sexual and reproductive freedoms" (including the right to abortion).

[258] Several states with pro-abortion stances also passed shield laws to protect doctors who prescribed medical abortion drugs by mail from out-of-state lawsuits targeting this practice.

[269] Google announced it would delete location history data after users visit "medical facilities", including abortion clinics, counseling centers, and domestic violence shelters.

Republicans, who were seeking to retake seats in both the House and Senate and gain several state governor and legislature positions in tight races, had some concern that the negative reaction to Dobbs could work against them.

[286] Studies using Texas data before and after the passage of the Heartbeat Act, and early statistics nationwide, showed that the stricter abortion bans passed by states were leading to a higher rate of infant mortality, about an 8% increase in the national average after Dobbs.

"[297] Further, Roe itself was built on the legal reasoning of the two cases that assured contraceptive availability, Griswold v. Connecticut and Eisenstadt v. Baird, which held that the Fourteenth Amendment establishes a "zone of personal privacy and autonomy" with which the states cannot interfere, according to Emily Berman, an associate professor at the University of Houston.

[323] Governors Jay Inslee, Kate Brown, and Gavin Newsom of Washington, Oregon, and California, respectively, announced a formation of the "West Coast offense", a joint policy to allow and protect abortion rights.

[324] Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez called Dobbs and other recent decisions she deemed favorable to conservatives a "judicial coup", demanding that President Joe Biden and Congress act to curtail the Supreme Court's power.

"[348] The president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, Moria Szilagyi, released a statement that the organization reaffirmed the policy to support "adolescents' right to access comprehensive, evidence-based reproductive healthcare services", including abortion.

[350] A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that demand for abortion medications in the United States, as reflected by internet search trends, reached record highs nationally after the draft Dobbs opinion was leaked online.

[362] The President of the Vatican's Pontifical Academy for Life, Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, called the ruling "a powerful invitation to reflect together on the serious and urgent issue of human generativity and the conditions that make it possible".

[401] The DHS issued a memo to law enforcement agencies and first responders to be aware of potential extremist violence in the weeks following the decision, particularly at federal and state government offices, abortion clinics and other health providers, and at faith-based organizations.

[17] Referendums conducted in the decision's wake in Kansas, Montana, California, Vermont, Michigan, Kentucky, and Ohio uniformly came out in favor of abortion rights, generally by margins that were both bipartisan and overwhelming.

Internationally, the widespread trend since 1973 has been toward loosening restrictions—as of 2023, it is now broadly legal throughout the vast majority of the developed world, with the exception of Poland[426]—with moves to restriction only recently passing in authoritarian polities or countries that are undergoing democratic backsliding or collapse.