The Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson, the Mississippi abortion case, will produce a lot of emotion in Summit County. People who favor abortion and people who oppose abortion will both say that the Supreme Court is against abortion. They are both wrong. The decision says that under our constitutional system of limited government, there is no basis for the federal government to make decisions about abortion regulation. Those decisions, particularly about when a fetus is “viable” and entitled to protection, are left to the states. 

The Court was right to reverse the infamous 1973 Roe v. Wade decision which held Texas abortion restrictions “unconstitutional” with virtually no basis for its decision in constitutional law or precedent. The Dobbs decision means that abortion policy will be made by democratically elected state legislatures, not by federal courts or bureaucrats. 

Roe is like the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision because it wrongfully imposed a judicial solution to a political issue. Dred Scott held that black people were the property of their owners and were not citizens of the U.S. entitled to Constitutional protections and freedoms. Similarly, Roe decided that babies in the womb are not human beings entitled to state government protection, but were more like the property of the mother, who could authorize their abortion on demand. 

In Colorado, the Dobbs decision is no reason for abortion advocates to despair or for pro-life advocates to celebrate. As allowed by Dobbs, Colorado politicians have already legalized abortion on demand, as if the baby were its mother’s disposable property, not a human with any rights at all. In the November elections, Governor Polis and the legislators who passed that legislation should be held accountable to the voters for their decision.