Last week the Supreme Court agreed to review Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case asking whether Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks is constitutional. This case, which is a direct challenge to the viability standard set forth in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, has the potential to overturn both Casey and the landmark Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, thereby returning America’s abortion laws to the democratic process in each state — an outcome that even the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg recognized would be “healthier” than the approach dictated in Roe.

In the early 1970s, when Roe was decided, only four states had legalized abortion before viability in all cases, while 14 states allowed abortion in some circumstances, and 33 states banned abortion in most cases.