Thomas Dobbs says he has nothing to do with ruling overturning Roe v. Wade : NPR
Thomas Dobbs is the state well being officer on the Mississippi State Division of Well being. His identify seems on the landmark Supreme Courtroom case on abortion rights, regardless of having “nothing to do with it,” he has stated.
The Supreme Courtroom ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Girls’s Well being Group clears the way in which for states to reshape abortion regulation within the U.S., practically 50 years after the court docket enshrined abortion rights on the federal degree within the Roe v. Wade determination.
The Dobbs case got here to the excessive court docket from Mississippi, the place the Jackson Girls’s Well being Group has lengthy been the one abortion supplier. In 2018, the state enacted a regulation that bans abortion after 15 weeks, with few exceptions — and never for instances involving rape or incest.
The Jackson clinic and one in all its medical doctors sued Mississippi officers in federal court docket, saying the state’s regulation was unconstitutional. A federal district court docket and the Fifth Circuit Courtroom of Appeals dominated in favor of the clinic, blocking Mississippi’s regulation. However the state appealed to the Supreme Courtroom, which put the case on its docket.
The case’s namesake says he is had “nothing to do with it”
Justices within the majority in contrast their ruling to overturn Roe to the Supreme Courtroom’s overturning of its 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson determination.
After Friday’s ruling, Thomas Dobbs’ identify will seemingly occupy an identical standing — shorthand for a seismic occasion within the nation’s authorized historical past. However Dobbs, a doctor who’s Mississippi’s prime well being officer, says he has had nothing to do with the case that bears his identify.
“It is only a quirk,” Dobbs has stated. His identify is on the case, he famous, due to sovereign immunity protections. As an alternative of suing his state company instantly, plaintiffs should identify Dobbs in court docket papers, as a result of he is the manager accountable for the company that inspects the Jackson clinic.
“Really, that regulation handed earlier than I used to be even on this job,” Dobbs stated, referring to Mississippi’s abortion restriction that triggered the federal case. “Actually, I’ve nothing to do with it.”
Why is the Supreme Courtroom case named Dobbs vs Jackson Girls’s Well being? Primarily based on sovereign immunity protections plaintiffs should sue the top of the regulatory authority, which on this case is the State Well being Officer, my present function. https://t.co/VGIpDv5dxS
— thomas dobbs (@TCBPubHealth) April 24, 2022
Dobbs is an infectious ailments physician who turned Mississippi’s prime well being officer in 2018. He is set to depart the publish in July, saying he’ll turn out to be dean of the College of Mississippi Medical Heart’s college of inhabitants well being.
Whereas individuals across the nation invoked his identify to debate the way forward for abortion rights within the U.S., Dobbs has been attempting to assist Mississippi struggle the COVID-19 pandemic. His tweets, as an example, usually urge individuals to get vaccine booster pictures, and hunt down therapies corresponding to Paxlovid and monoclonals in the event that they get sick.
The state’s case turned on the viability customary
When the Supreme Courtroom granted Mississippi’s request to listen to the abortion regulation case, it restricted itself to 1 query: “Whether or not all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
The notion of viability is essential in abortion regulation. As Priscilla Smith, a Yale Regulation professor and a supporter of abortion rights, instructed NPR late final yr, “The central tenet of Roe is the supply of abortions as much as viability.” Mississippi’s petition to the Supreme Courtroom known as that customary “unsatisfactory.” It additionally famous that fetal viability has modified over time, due to advances in obstetrics and medical expertise.
“Tomorrow, improvement of a synthetic womb will inevitably transfer the ‘viability’ line to the second of conception,” the state wrote in its petition.
Attorneys for Jackson Girls’s Well being Group stated the central query of viability was already settled — by Roe v. Wade in 1973 and by Deliberate Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey in 1992.
The clinic needed the Supreme Courtroom to affirm the Fifth Circuit’s determination, citing “practically fifty years of precedent.” However a majority of justices dominated that Roe had been wrongly determined, returning management of abortions to the states.