UC Irvine Law Review

For the first time in nearly thirty years, in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the United States Supreme Court was asked, again, to overturn its landmark ruling in Roe v. Wade finding a constitutional right to an abortion. And with three new Trump appointees and a 6-3 conservative majority, it was finally able to do just that. The Court’s decision in Dobbs has called into question not just the safety of abortion but of other constitutional rights grounded in similar tradition and legal doctrine. This Note considers the effects that the Dobbs decision could have on LGBTQ+ rights in particular and proceeds in four parts. Part I analyzes the cultural similarities underlying the issues of abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Part II surveys the current Court’s attitude toward abortion and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as its attitude toward the doctrine of stare decisis. Part III analyzes the analogous legal doctrines utilized by the majorities in landmark abortion and LGBTQ+ rights cases. Part IV considers the effects that the overruling of Roe could have on existing LGBTQ+ precedent today and suggests that—to the extent those precedents are put at risk—modern practitioners going before the Court should seek to actively decouple these issues in the eyes of the Justices.