Denouncing the Revival of Pre-Roe v. Wade Abortion Bans in A Post-Dobbs World Through the Void Ab Initio and Presumption of Validity Doctrines

The United States Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Written by Justice Alito and joined by four of the other conservative justices, the decision describes Roe as “egregiously wrong from the start” and blatantly overrules the landmark holding and its prodigy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In their state codes, nine states—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin— have unrepealed criminal abortion bans enacted before Roe. These bans prohibit abortion at any point in pregnancy unless to preserve the life of the pregnant person and apply criminal penalties to any person that induces or attempts to induce an abortion. These criminal penalties range from as lenient as a $100 fine to as severe as ten years in prison