Three Years After Dobbs, State Courts Are Defining the Future of Abortion

This month marks the third anniversary of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,in which the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and held that there was no federal constitutional right to abortion. The Court said it was returning decisions about abortion regulation “to the people and their elected representatives.” Strikingly, the decision didn’t mention state courts. 

But it’s state judges who interpret the scope of state abortion restrictions and define state constitutional rights to abortion access. In the aftermath of Dobbs, a flood of state litigation challenged trigger laws and other bans that sought to immediately block abortions after federal protections disappeared. Since 2022, dozens of major rulings have yielded widely varying results. 

This kind of litigation continues, and new legal issues have also emerged in the three years since Dobbs. Recent cases in Florida and Missouri — both covered by UC Davis School of Law professor Mary Ziegler in State Court Report — highlight some of the next generation questions to watch. 

The first is what happens after a state passes a constitutional amendment to protect abortion rights. In Missouri, voters passed an abortion rights amendment in November, making it one of 10 states to codify explicit abortion protections in its constitution since Dobbs. A state law banning virtually all abortions is now unconstitutional. But Missouri still has restrictions on the books — such as onerous licensing requirements for clinics and a 72-hour waiting period — which providers say create substantial hurdles to abortion care. Does Missouri’s amendment limit the state’s ability to impose these kinds of restrictions?

Last week, the Missouri Supreme Court overturned a trial court injunction that had blocked these laws. As Ziegler explains, it was a procedural ruling: The court held that the trial court had applied the wrong legal standard because it didn’t assess whether the plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits. But while the court didn’t reach the substance of the claims, the practical effect of the ruling is to halt abortions. After the decision, clinics in the state canceled appointments and advised patients to travel out of state.

The case now goes back to the trial court, and any consideration of a new injunction is likely to take at least a month. A lot of uncertainty remains, but what’s clear, Ziegler argues, “is that simply passing a constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights is not enough to guarantee access to abortion.” 

Similar disputes are playing out elsewhere. In Arizona, a lawsuit challenging abortion restrictions under its 2024 abortion rights amendment was filed last month. And in Michigan, a trial court recently entered a permanent injunction blocking several abortion restrictions, including a 24-hour waiting period, under that state’s 2022 amendment. The court emphasized that the restrictions were “not consistent with the accepted standard of care and evidence-based medicine.” 

The litigation in Arizona, Michigan, and Missouri all relates to whether state constitutions protect access to abortion. A recent intermediate appellate case in Florida, however, highlights a second emerging issue: how constitutions can be used to limit abortion access. 

In Doe v. Uthmeier, a Florida appellate court struck down a state law that allowed minors to bypass parental consent requirements with judicial approval. The court ruled that the procedure violated the rights of parents, denying them one of “the most basic due-process guarantees — notice and opportunity to be heard — on the question whether they must forfeit an important parental right that the state and federal constitutions secure to them.” The court based its ruling on the U.S. Constitution, while stressing that Florida’s constitution provides even broader protections for parental rights. 

The next stop for this case is the Florida Supreme Court, and given the federal constitutional issues, it could ultimately be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. In addition to the parental rights claims raised by the appellate court, Ziegler anticipates that the Florida Supreme Court may use the case to address fetal personhood rights under the state constitution. A “showdown” is brewing in Florida “over parental rights, abortion access, fertility care, and more,” Ziegler explains. Ultimately, the case “could reshape the state’s reproductive rights landscape.”

Alicia Bannon is the director of the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice and editor in chief for State Court Report. 

Suggested Citation: Alicia Bannon, Three Years After Dobbs, State Courts Are Defining the Future of Abortion, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Jun. 5, 2025), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/three-years-after-dobbs-state-courts-are-defining-future-abortion