Culminating a flurry of late June opinions released by SCOTUS this week, the court today in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization has taken the extraordinary step of ending decades of precedent surrounding the protections for abortion-related services under the U.S. Constitution. The opinion has been widely anticipated since a draft opinion was leaked, and overturns the prior SCOTUS opinions in Roe v. Wade (1973) as well as Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992).
The result is that states will be allowed to regulate abortion access within their borders. As we have previously covered, employers with facilities and employees in states which restrict access to abortion, prenatal, contraceptive and other similar services will be faced with a decision on how to ensure equal access for health plan services to their workforce. For more information on the issues underlying this analysis, please read our Legal Update here, and listen to our Podcast here.
