What might be crime and punishment echoes if Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade?

The big news of the law world yesterday was the Supreme Court hearing oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the abortion case out of Mississippi which is viewed as a vehicle for the Justices to reconsider and potentially overrule abortion rights precedents like Roe and Casey.  Based on press reports, as collected here at How Appealing, it sure sounds like a majority of the Justices are prepared to overrule Roe.  Recalling some headlines revealing how abortion laws and debates can implicate crime and punishment issues, I thought it might be useful to flag some press articles of relatively recent vintage which highlight how the overruling of Roe could become of considerable interest for those who focus on criminal justice matters. 

Interestingly, the law at issue in the Dobbs case, Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, appears to only have “Professional sanctions and civil penalties” as the enforcement tools for seeking “to restrict the practice of nontherapeutic or elective abortion to the period up to the fifteenth week of gestation.”  However, as highlighted by this cursory and abridged review of some press pieces, criminal law and even extreme punishments can be part of an abortion restriction discourse and may become very dynamic if Supreme Court actually does overturn Roe v. Wade:

From Chicago Tribune from April 2018, “Who would be punished for abortion in a post-Roe America?“

From CNN in May 2019, “Alabama doctors who perform abortions could face up to 99 years in prison — the same as rapists and murderers“

From Texas Tribune in March 2021, “Another Texas GOP lawmaker is attempting to make abortion punishable by the death penalty“

From Slate in September 2021, “Caught in the Net: Interrogated, examined, blackmailed: how law enforcement treated abortion-seeking women before Roe.“

From The Guardian in November 2021, “What will US’s future look like if abortion becomes a crime again?”