By: Jenna De Stefano
On June 24th, 2022, The United States Supreme Court decided in Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health, et al. v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, et al. that the two historical decisions in Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey were unconstitutional.[1] In the majority opinion, Justice Alito concluded that the Court should return the authority to regulate or prohibit abortion to the states and their elected officials.[2] Almost immediately after the Court ordered the decision, thirteen states banned abortion using “trigger laws” written and enacted before the majority opinion was officially released to the public.[3] Most of the trigger laws instantly halted abortions in these states and affected women with appointments for an abortion that Friday morning.[4]
One of the most anti-abortion states in the country is Louisiana, having only three abortion clinics in the whole state before the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs.[5] According to Pew Research Center, fifty-seven percent of Louisiana residents believe abortion should be illegal in all or most cases.[6] Only two other states have a slightly higher percentage: West Virginia and Arkansas.[7] In 2006, the state legislatures of Louisiana implemented a trigger law that Governor John Bel Edwards updated in 2022, intended to instantly make abortions illegal once the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.[8] According to Louisiana law, physicians who performed abortions, even the morning the Dobbs decision was released, could face a fine of $100,000 and up to ten years in prison.[9] For the past six months, the trigger law has faced much opposition in and out of the courts and is subject to change.[10] However, today, abortions are illegal in Louisiana unless the pregnant “woman’s” life is endangered due to a physical condition or a miscarriage must be treated.[11]
Before the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health was released, the Louisiana government struggled to provide proper healthcare, state infrastructure, education, food security, and unemployment programs to low-income individuals and families.[12] According to the 2020 Census, Louisiana has a nineteen percent poverty rate, the second highest in the country.[13] Additionally, Louisiana is ranked as the forty-eighth state for education, the forty-sixth state for health care, and the forty-seventh state for both infrastructure and economy.[14] Overall, Louisiana has been rated the worst state in the United States.[15] Louisiana’s state ban on abortion will lead to increased birth rates within the state and an increasing need for governmental services provided by federal and state governments to the low-income population.[16]
Each state that outlaws abortion services and practices should be required to increase benefits to residents now disproportionately affected by their lawmaking decision. In Dobbs, the dissenting Justices also recognized the increased importance of public benefits due to the new limit on women’s access to healthcare.[17] Why can the Louisiana state government, which has proved its inability to provide for its citizens, be able to regulate a decision that will economically and personally affect its residents for the rest of their lives?
[1] Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org., 142 S. Ct. 2228, 2242 (2022).
[2] Id. at 2284.
[3] Elizabeth Nash and Isabel Guarnieri, 13 States Have Abortion Trigger Bans – Here’s What Happens When Roe is Overturned, Guttmacher Institute (June 2022), https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2022/06/13-states-have-abortion-trigger-bans-heres-what-happens-when-roe-overturned#.
[4] Id.
[5] Piper Hutchinson and Julie O’Donoghue, Louisiana bans abortion after Supreme Court Ruling, Louisiana Illuminator (June 24, 2022), https://lailluminator.com/2022/06/24/louisianas-trigger-law-to-restrict-abortion-goes-into-effect-with-supreme-court-ruling/.
[6] Views about abortion by state, Pew Research Center (2022), https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/compare/views-about-abortion/by/state/.
[7] Id.
[8] Id.
[9] Id.
[10] Id.
[11] Nicole Prebeck, Louisiana Abortion Laws, Find Law (Dec. 22, 2022), https://www.findlaw.com/state/louisiana-law/louisiana-abortion-laws.html.
[12] Louisiana, U.S. News (2022), https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/louisiana#state-rankings.
[13] Poverty Rate by State, World Population Review (2023), https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/poverty-rate-by-state.
[14] Id.
[15] Id.
[16] Diana Greene Foster, Six Predictions About the End of Roe, Based on Research, Politico Magazine (June 8, 2022), https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/06/08/the-end-of-roe-wont-cause-birth-rates-or-adoptions-to-spike-00037864.
[17] Dobbs, 142 S. Ct. at 2347 (Sotomayor, S., dissenting).
