U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, who was nominated by former President Clinton, asked the parties in an ongoing criminal case on Monday to file briefs on whether the high court considered the entire Constitution in overturning Roe, or if it only found the 14th Amendment didn’t confer abortion rights.
Despite the landmark Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization landmark decision, the judge went on to suggest that the 13th Amendment — which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude — could perhaps cement abortion rights.
“Here, the ‘issue’ before the Court in Dobbs was not whether any provision of the Constitution provided a right to abortion,” Kollar-Kotelly wrote. “Rather, the question before the Court in Dobbs was whether the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution provided such a right.”
Her filing came in response to a defendant seeking to dismiss charges of conspiring against rights and violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act.