Plan B, contraceptives remain legal in Texas after Supreme Court ruling

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With Roe v. Wade overturned, Texas stands poised to ban nearly all abortions inside the subsequent few months.

But contraception and emergency contraceptives, generally known as Plan B, are different from the drugs used to induce an abortion.

In the identical choice that overruled Roe, the U.S. Supreme Court was clear that the constitutional proper to entry contraceptives stays untouched — although one justice mentioned he would welcome challenges to that proper.

What protects the proper to contraceptives?

The 1965 Supreme Court case Griswold v. Connecticut established that married {couples} have a proper to buy and use contraception. In 1972, the court docket confirmed in Eisenstadt v. Baird that the proper extends to single people as properly.

In Griswold, the court docket dominated that the U.S. Constitution ensures a proper to privateness, with some justices saying it was implied all through the Bill of Rights and a few arguing it comes straight from the due course of clause of the 14th Amendment.

The court docket later relied on comparable logic seven years later when deciding Roe.

What was overruled in Dobbs v. Jackson?

The court docket’s choice in Dobbs was confined to overruling the constitutional proper to an abortion established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The court docket held that Griswold and different circumstances about contraceptives use don’t contain “the destruction of what Roe called ‘potential life,’” and are unaffected by the court docket’s rejection of the proper to an abortion.

In his concurring opinion in Dobbs, Justice Clarence Thomas welcomed challenges to circumstances that depend on the due course of proper to privateness, together with Griswold. But the bulk opinion, which constitutes the court docket’s last choice, is obvious:

“To ensure that our decision is not misunderstood or mischaracterized, we emphasize that our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the bulk opinion. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion.”

Disclosure: Planned Parenthood has been a monetary supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news group that’s funded in half by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Financial supporters play no function in the Tribune’s journalism. Find an entire list of them here.

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