How Stephen Breyer voted on Dobbs v Jackson: Abortion ruling explained

Stephen Breyer, the liberal US Supreme Court Justice, is stepping down on Thursday and will be replaced by Ketanji Brown Jackson, President Joe Biden’s nominee, who’s set to make history as the first black female Supreme Court Justice. Breyer, before his retirement, which was announced in January, voted on the Dobbs v Jackson case, and the historic Roe v Wade decision, which was overturned. 

The Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization case was about the constitutionality of a 2018 Mississippi law, banning most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in the state, had sued Thomas E. Dobbs, the state health official with the  Mississippi State Department of Health, in March 2018. 

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In overturning this landmark decision, the Supreme Court also overturned Roe v Wade, the 1973 ruling which made abortion a constitutional right, and the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey ruling. 

The Justices voted 6-3, affirming the Mississippi law, with Breyer voting against it. Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan joined him, and the three justices penned a dissent against the Supreme Court’s decision. 

“One of us (Breyer) once said that it ‘is not often in the law that so few have so quickly changed so much.’ … For all of us, in our time on this court, that has never been more true than today. In overruling Roe and Casey, this court betrays its guiding principles. With sorrow — for this court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection — we dissent”, they said. 

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The Supreme Court Justices ruled 5-4 to overturn Roe, with conservative Justice John Roberts voting to uphold the landmark decision. 

He penned a separate opinion, saying “The court’s decision to overrule Roe and Casey is a serious jolt to the legal system — regardless of how you view those cases. A narrower decision rejecting the misguided viability line would be markedly less unsettling, and nothing more is needed to decide this case.”