ABA supports reproductive choice, opposes prosecution for having an abortion, ABA president says
Jackson Women's Health Organization, known as the "Pink House," is the last remaining abortion clinic in Mississippi. Photo by Bonnie Jo Mount/The Washington Post via Getty Images.
ABA President Reginald Turner emphasized Friday that the American Bar Association “remains committed to doing all it can to support reproductive choice.”
The ABA released Turner’s statement after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Friday in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that there is no constitutional right to abortion. The ABA had submitted an amicus brief in the case urging the justices to uphold Roe v. Wade and subsequent decisions protecting the right to abortion.
The ABA supports reproductive choice and opposes the criminal prosecution of any person for having an abortion, Turner said in the statement.
Turner said Dobbs “will deny millions of people in our country what has been a protected right for half of a century.” He noted that the ABA amicus brief had cited “the irreparable harm that reversing Roe would cause women and the disproportionate effect of a change in the law on women of color.”
The ABA has created the Law, Society and the Judiciary Task Force in response to the Dobbs decision.
The new task force “will address, as appropriate, issues related to the Dobbs decision,” Turner said. “It will also examine ways the association can continue its work to enhance respect for the judiciary and advance the rule of law.”
