Overview
In this essay, you will reflect on recent legal decisions, historical interpretations of rights, and your own views about reproductive care and leadership. Use the guiding questions below to shape your response. You do not have to answer them in order, nor do you have to dress each point, but your essay should show clear organization and thought.
1. Justice Alito says there is no right to abortion, why? Justice Thomas says that there should be no right to contraception/sexual intimacy/same-sex marriage. Why is that, and what do you think about that?
2. To Justice Alito history is an important way to find rights. What do you think about this argument? Is it possible to read history without "cherrypicking" events to suit your argument? What about the fact that women were not even mentioned in the Constitution and certainly were not permitted to vote or participate in leadership roles? How does this historical fact influence our thinking about a woman's right to reproductive control? What about the possibility of having a more "living" Constitution that does not look backward? Is that desirable?
3. (Fun extra credit paragraph: How does the 14th Amendment fit into Alito's historical argument?)
4. How did the dissenting opinion (see optional reading) discuss the way that reproductive care impacts women's lives? Do you relate to the stories the justices tell?
5. If we leave women's reproductive health care up to individual states and those states make abortion illegal is that not a form of forced pregnancy?
6. What are the implications of Dobbs v. Jackson for women's leadership in the United States? Will it mobilize women leaders in politics? Does it heighten the stakes for judicial and legal leadership? What's the impact on women's corporate leadership and workplace equality? What about future women leaders and the pipeline of potential leaders?
7. To you, how does access to reproductive care affect your life and career?