미국 연방대법원의 2022년 낙태 판결에 대한 비판적 고찰

Abstract

On June 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court found that “the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion” in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization . The Supreme Court determined that the right to abortion is not a constitutional right, overruling Roe v. Wade (decided in 1973) and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey (1992), which acknowledged a woman’s right to choose to terminate her pregnancy. The Court, then, ruled that the authority to regulate abortion was returned to the people and their elected representatives in each state. With this decision, a pregnant woman’s right to abortion, which has been recognized as a constitutional right in the United States for the past 50 years, loses its status, and each state’s legislature is empowered to regulate abortion based on its own determination of legitimate that state’s interests. This article aims to examine the legitimacy of the Court’s ruling, by analyzing the legal principle for denying the right to abortion in Dobbs and presenting its problems from a critical perspective. In particular, it points out questionable parts in the logic of Dobbs through discussions on the way to interpret the Constitution vis-à-vis rights not specifically enumerated in it and where it is required to follow the doctrine of stare decisis. Finally, it claims that the right to abortion should be understood to be included in the right to privacy, as was found in Roe , which is protected by the Due Process Clause of the 14th Amendment.