Have a personal or library account? Click to login
The Dobbs Difference: the Rhetoric of Overruling in the United States Supreme Court Cover

The Dobbs Difference: the Rhetoric of Overruling in the United States Supreme Court

Open Access
|Jan 2025

Abstract

This article examines the rhetoric used in the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization to describe the decisions it overruled. We ask whether that rhetoric marked a stark departure in the way the Court has treated other cases in which precedent was overturned. To answer that question, we examine every overruling case in the history of the Court. We argue that, in some ways, Dobbs was continuous with developments in that history and, in other ways, marked a stark departure in the Court's rhetoric of overruling. We conclude by considering the implications of the rhetoric of overruling for legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/bjals-2024-0006 | Journal eISSN: 2719-5864 | Journal ISSN: 2049-4092
Language: English
Published on: Jan 23, 2025
Published by: Birmingham City University
In partnership with: Paradigm Publishing Services
Publication frequency: 2 issues per year

© 2025 Austin Sarat, Claire Beougher, Henry Lahue, published by Birmingham City University
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 3.0 License.

AHEAD OF PRINT