Protecting Abortion With Health Care Freedom of Choice

Tracy Thomas, Protecting Abortion with Health Care Freedom of Choice, 51 Journal Law, Medicine & Ethics 601 (2023)

With the Supreme Court overturning the fifty year federal constitutional right to abortion recognized in Roe v. Wade and reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the question returns to state courts and legislatures. One potential avenue for future protection lies in state constitutional provisions. These issues are being litigated in court, and activists in several states have successfully put express constitutional amendments for abortion on the ballot. Concurrently with the previously-recognized federal right, fourteen states had recognized a right to abortion under state constitutional guarantees of equal protection, liberty, autonomy, and/or privacy. Post-Dobbs, there is renewed interest in utilizing these potential foundations for the abortion right under state-specific guarantees.

One possible avenue for recognizing a state constitutional right to choose an abortion may be found in rights to health care. Four states have express constitutional guarantees of freedom of choice in health care, and three states have recently proposed such amendments. Four other states have statutory provisions of health care freedom expressing policy that could be used to interpret constitutional rights of liberty to protect abortion. Courts in Ohio, Wyoming, and Montana have applied their health care freedom amendments to protect the liberty interest in choosing an abortion. These cases offer an example of how to protect abortion as a health care right.