Opinion | The amendment ending slavery could be the key to securing abortion rights

In its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the Supreme Court made clear that its new majority rejects the interpretation of the right to privacy in the U.S. Constitution that made Roe v. Wade and a host of other Supreme Court precedents possible. In permitting Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks, the majority in Dobbs declared the ground on which the right to privacy stands to be sand — shifting and unsound.

What poor women — especially poor Black women in Mississippi — have known since 1980, when the court upheld the Hyde Amendment’s restrictions on using federal funds for abortions for those poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, is now the reality for everyone: The Constitution does not guarantee the right to choose nor access to abortion as part of comprehensive reproductive health care.