IV 
117TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 1218 
Condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and 
Planned Parenthood v. Casey and committing to advancing reproductive 
justice and judicial reform. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JULY 5, 2022 
Mr. ESPAILLAT (for himself, Mrs. CHERFILUS-MCCORMICK, Ms. CHU, Mr. 
JONES, Mr. CARTER of Louisiana, Mr. TORRES of New York, Ms. 
VELA´ZQUEZ, Mr. TONKO, Mr. BLUMENAUER, Ms. BARRAGA´N, Ms. TITUS, 
Mr. BOWMAN, Ms. JAYAPAL, Ms. NORTON, Ms. MENG, Mr. CONNOLLY, 
Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN, Ms. BONAMICI, Mr. PAYNE, Mr. DANNY K. 
DAVIS of Illinois, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Mr. TAKANO, 
Ms. CLARKE of New York, Ms. OMAR, Mrs. LAWRENCE, Mr. BROWN of 
Maryland, Ms. WILLIAMS of Georgia, Mr. KRISHNAMOORTHI, Mr. SIRES, 
Mrs. HAYES, Mr. EVANS, Mr. CLEAVER, Ms. PRESSLEY, Mr. QUIGLEY, 
Ms. DELBENE, Mr. MCNERNEY, Mr. MOULTON, Ms. WILSON of Florida, 
Mr. DAVID SCOTT of Georgia, Mrs. LEE of Nevada, Mr. KHANNA, Ms. 
DEAN, Mr. CARSON, Ms. STEVENS, Mr. SCHIFF, Mr. DESAULNIER, Mr. 
LEVIN of Michigan, Mr. MICHAEL F. DOYLE of Pennsylvania, Ms. 
ESCOBAR, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, and Mr. VARGAS) submitted the following 
resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and 
in addition to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, for a period to 
be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
RESOLUTION 
Condemning the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe 
v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey and commit-
ting to advancing reproductive justice and judicial re-
form. 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
Whereas, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the Supreme 
Court held that— 
(1) ‘‘Overruling Roe’s central holding would not only 
reach an unjustifiable result under stare decisis prin-
ciples, but would seriously weaken the Court’s capacity to 
exercise the judicial power and to function as the Su-
preme Court of a Nation dedicated to the rule of law’’; 
(2) ‘‘Roe determined that a woman’s decision to ter-
minate her pregnancy is a ‘liberty’ protected against 
state interference by the substantive component of the 
Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Nei-
ther the Bill of Rights nor the specific practices of States 
at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption 
marks the outer limits of the substantive sphere of such 
‘liberty’. Rather, the adjudication of substantive due 
process claims may require this Court to exercise its rea-
soned judgment in determining the boundaries between 
the individual’s liberty and the demands of organized so-
ciety’’; and 
(3) ‘‘The ability of women to participate equally in 
the economic and social life of the Nation has been facili-
tated by their ability to control their reproductive lives. 
The Constitution serves human values, and while the ef-
fect of reliance on Roe cannot be exactly measured, nei-
ther can the certain costs of overruling Roe for people 
who have ordered their thinking and living around that 
case be dismissed’’; 
Whereas it is tempting ‘‘to suppose that the Due Process 
Clause protects only those practices, defined at the most 
specific level, that were protected against government in-
terference by other rules of law when the Fourteenth 
Amendment was ratified . . . But such a view would be 
inconsistent with our law. It is a promise of the Constitu-
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•HRES 1218 IH 
tion that there is a realm of personal liberty which the 
government may not enter. We have vindicated this prin-
ciple before. Marriage is mentioned nowhere in the Bill 
of Rights and interracial marriage was illegal in most 
States in the 19th century, but the Court was no doubt 
correct in finding it to be an aspect of liberty protected 
against state interference by the substantive component 
of the Due Process Clause in Loving v. Virginia’’; 
Whereas, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, 
the Supreme Court presided over a challenge to a 2018 
Mississippi law that bans virtually all abortions after the 
15th week of pregnancy; 
Whereas, during oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Wom-
en’s Health Organization, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, 
poignantly and correctly stated, ‘‘Will this institution [the 
Supreme Court] survive the stench that this creates in 
the public perception that the constitution and its read-
ing are just political acts?’’ ‘‘I don’t see how it is pos-
sible’’; 
Whereas, on June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court issued its 
holding in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organiza-
tion by holding that— 
(1) ‘‘the Constitution does not confer a right to 
abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority 
to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their 
elected representatives’’; 
(2) a restrictive standard applies for substantive due 
process rights under the United States Constitution by 
only recognizing rights ‘‘deeply rooted in [our] history 
and tradition’’ and ‘‘implicit in the concept of ordered lib-
erty’’; and 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
(3) a State’s regulation of abortion is not a sex- 
based classification and is thus not subject to the 
‘‘heightened scrutiny’’ that applies to such classifications; 
Whereas Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion in 
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization urges 
the Supreme Court to ‘‘reconsider all . . . substantive 
due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, 
and Obergefell. Because any substantive due process de-
cision is demonstrably erroneous’’; 
Whereas Justice Breyer, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice 
Kagan issued a dissenting opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s Health Organization, stating— 
(1) for half a century, Roe v. Wade and Planned 
Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, have protected 
the liberty and equality of women; 
(2) ‘‘Roe held, and Casey reaffirmed, that the Con-
stitution safeguards a woman’s right to decide for herself 
whether to bear a child’’; 
(3) ‘‘The government could not control a woman’s 
body or the course of a woman’s life: It could not deter-
mine what the woman’s future would be’’; 
(4) ‘‘Respecting a woman as an autonomous being, 
and granting her full equality, meant giving her substan-
tial choice over this most personal and most consequen-
tial of all life decisions’’; 
(5) the Supreme Court’s majority today, ‘‘says that 
from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no 
rights to speak of. A State can force her to bring a preg-
nancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial 
costs. An abortion restriction, the majority holds, is per-
missible whenever rational, the lowest level of scrutiny 
known to the law. And because, as the Court has often 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
stated, protecting fetal life is rational, States will feel 
free to enact all manner of restrictions’’; 
(6) ‘‘The Mississippi law at issue here bars abortions 
after the 15th week of pregnancy. Under the majority’s 
ruling, though, another State’s law could do so after ten 
weeks, or five or three or one—or, again, from the mo-
ment of fertilization’’; 
(7) ‘‘Some States have enacted laws extending to all 
forms of abortion procedure, including taking medication 
in one’s own home. They have passed laws without any 
exceptions for when the woman is the victim of rape or 
incest. Under those laws, a woman will have to bear her 
rapist’s child or a young girl her father’s—no matter if 
doing so will destroy her life. So too, after today’s ruling, 
some States may compel women to carry to term a fetus 
with severe physical anomalies . . . States may even 
argue that a prohibition on abortion need make no provi-
sion for protecting a woman from risk of death or phys-
ical harm. Across a vast array of circumstances, a State 
will be able to impose its moral choice on a woman and 
coerce her to give birth to a child’’; 
(8) ‘‘A State can of course impose criminal penalties 
on abortion providers, including lengthy prison sentences. 
But some States will not stop there. Perhaps, in the wake 
of today’s decision, a state law will criminalize the wom-
an’s conduct too, incarcerating or fining her for daring 
to seek or obtain an abortion. And as Texas has recently 
shown, a State can turn neighbor against neighbor, en-
listing fellow citizens in the effort to root out anyone who 
tries to get an abortion, or to assist another in doing so’’; 
(9) ‘‘After this decision, some States may block 
women from traveling out of State to obtain abortions, or 
even from receiving abortion medications from out of 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
State. Some may criminalize efforts, including the provi-
sion of information or funding, to help women gain ac-
cess to other States’ abortion services’’; 
(10) ‘‘Most threatening of all, no language in to-
day’s decision stops the Federal Government from pro-
hibiting abortions nationwide, once again from the mo-
ment of conception and without exceptions for rape or in-
cest’’; 
(11) ‘‘Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws, 
one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment 
of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal 
citizens’’; 
(12) ‘‘According to the majority, no liberty interest 
is present—because (and only because) the law offered no 
protection to the woman’s choice in the 19th century. 
But here is the rub. The law also did not then (and 
would not for ages) protect a wealth of other things. It 
did not protect the rights recognized in Lawrence and 
Obergefell to same-sex intimacy and marriage. It did not 
protect the right recognized in Loving to marry across 
racial lines. It did not protect the right recognized in 
Griswold to contraceptive use. For that matter, it did not 
protect the right recognized in Skinner v. Oklahoma ex 
rel. Williamson . . . not to be sterilized without consent. 
So if the majority is right in its legal analysis, all those 
decisions were wrong, and all those matters properly be-
long to the States too—whatever the particular state in-
terests involved. And if that is true, it is impossible to 
understand (as a matter of logic and principle) how the 
majority can say that its opinion today does not threat-
en—does not even ‘undermine’—any number of other 
constitutional rights’’; 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
(13) ‘‘Today’s decision, taken on its own, is cata-
strophic enough. As a matter of constitutional method, 
the majority’s commitment to replicate in 2022 every 
view about the meaning of liberty held in 1868 has pre-
cious little to recommend it. Our law in this constitu-
tional sphere, as in most, has for decades upon decades 
proceeded differently. It has considered fundamental con-
stitutional principles, the whole course of the Nation’s 
history and traditions, and the step-by-step evolution of 
the Court’s precedents. It is disciplined but not static. It 
relies on accumulated judgments, not just the sentiments 
of one long-ago generation of men (who themselves be-
lieved, and drafted the Constitution to reflect, that the 
world progresses). And by doing so, it includes those ex-
cluded from that olden conversation, rather than perpet-
uating its bounds’’; 
(14) ‘‘The legitimacy of the Court is earned over 
time . . . it can be destroyed much more quickly’’; 
(15) ‘‘The American public . . . should never con-
clude that its constitutional protections hung by a 
thread—that a new majority, adhering to a new ‘doc-
trinal school’, could ‘by dint of numbers’ alone expunge 
their rights . . . It is hard—no, it is impossible—to con-
clude that anything else has happened here’’; and 
(16) ‘‘With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for 
the many millions of American women who have today 
lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dis-
sent’’; 
Whereas the Supreme Court’s holding in Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s Health Organization places other fundamental 
human rights, such as the right to contraception, inter-
racial marriage, and same-sex marriage at risk; 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
Whereas the Supreme Court’s holding in Dobbs v. Jackson 
Women’s Health Organization strips millions of women 
of their status as free and equal members of society, and 
has a corrosive impact on society, for example— 
(1) according to the World Health Organization, 
lack of access to safe, affordable, timely and respectful 
abortion care, and the stigma associated with abortion, 
pose risks to women’s physical and mental well-being 
throughout their life; 
(2) approximately 64,000,000 women and girls of 
reproductive age live in the United States, and more than 
half of them live in States that could seek to ban or fur-
ther restrict access to abortion now that the Supreme 
Court overturned Roe and Casey; 
(3) everyone risks losing access to abortion in 28 
States, but those who are more likely to get the proce-
dure include women of color, in part because of unequal 
access to opportunities like health care, jobs, education, 
and housing; 
(4) undocumented women will be disproportionately 
impacted by restrictions on abortions as they will not be 
able to travel to seek abortion services; 
(5) women living in poverty or on lower incomes will 
be disproportionately impacted by restrictions on abor-
tions, as most women getting abortions are living in pov-
erty; 
(6) transgender and gender non-binary (TGNB) in-
dividuals will be impacted, as the Guttmacher Institute 
found that approximately 500 TGNB individuals ob-
tained abortions in 2017; 
(7) medication abortion accounted for 54 percent of 
all United States abortions in 2020, an increase from 39 
percent in 2017, according to the Guttmacher Institute; 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
(8) 19 States prohibit pills from being prescribed by 
telemedicine or delivered through the mail, and 9 addi-
tional States are proposing to do the same; 
(9) the American College of Obstetricians and Gyne-
cologists estimates that miscarriage is the most common 
form of pregnancy loss, as many as 26 percent of all 
pregnancies end in miscarriage and according to reports, 
miscarriages and abortions are often clinically indistin-
guishable; and 
(10) reports find that medical providers who treat 
pregnancy-related issues, including miscarriages, fear 
performing any procedure that can be classified as an 
abortion—even while the procedures remain legal, risking 
being prosecuted, having their licenses revoked, or being 
thrown in jail; and 
Whereas, on June 23, 2022, Gallup found that public con-
fidence in the Supreme Court has sunk to a historic low 
of 25 percent: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives— 
(1) condemns the restless and newly constituted 
Supreme Court’s holding in Dobbs v. Jackson Wom-
en’s Health Organization; 
(2) commits to utilizing constitutional authori-
ties provided to Congress under Article III of the 
Constitution to enact judicial reform, helping reas-
sure public confidence in the Supreme Court so that 
it is not viewed as a partisan institution; 
(3) commits to ensuring that Federal law ad-
vances reproductive justice, recognizing that access 
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•HRES 1218 IH 
to abortion constitutes access to health care as a 
fundamental liberty of all human beings; 
(4) commits to protecting communities that will 
be disproportionately impacted by the holding in 
Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, in-
cluding women of color, undocumented women, 
women living in poverty, LGBTQIA+ individuals, 
gender nonconforming individuals, and individuals 
with disabilities; and 
(5) urges the executive branch to utilize con-
stitutional authorities and a whole-of-government ap-
proach to advance reproductive justice. 
Æ 
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