Just over one month ago, Politico published a leaked draft opinion penned by Justice Samuel Alito, a nearly unprecedented breach of the high Court’s norms of non-disclosure until the moment an opinion is officially released. Now that it is June the Court is likely to release its official decision in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

The decision in this case could overturn the 1973  Roe v. Wade precedent which established that abortion rights were an extension of an implied Right to Privacy found in the 14th amendment. If Roe is overturned it is most likely that each individual sate would be left to decide legality and access to termination services within its own boundaites. . And according to the Guttmacher Institute, 26 states are certain or likely to ban or severely restrict the procedure. 

Planned Parenthood estimates that 36 million women – more than half of all women of reproductive age in the United States – live in one of those states.

The loss of rights is not consistent with the American narrative of ourselves. American exceptionalism. The shining city of the hill. Here, on this soil is where the arc of history is meant to bend toward justice, offering ever more access to liberty, equality, justice. But is the arc of American history always bending toward justice?

We look back through history with Blair Kelley, is a Professor of history at North Carolina State University. She is also the author of “Right to Ride: Streetcar Boycotts and African American Citizenship.”

And some gazette.com/opinion/insight/2022/05/08/alito-aggressive-ruling-would-reach-beyond-roe-melissa-murray-and-leah-litman/stories/202205080064">legal experts and advocates worry that this Court decision could threaten other basic rights like access to contraception, same-sex marriage, and interracial marriage. We speak with Akhil Reed Amar, a Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University, looking forward to what may happen next.