News Topic

AHA in the News, Amicus Briefs

The amicus curiae brief submitted by the AHA and the Organization of American Historians (OAH) in the Supreme Court case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was cited in a New York Times Magazine article by Emily Bazelon about the new “history and tradition” test that conservative court judges have recently adopted, which “allow judges to set aside modern developments in the law to restore the precedents of the distant past.” The brief, based on decades of study and research by professional historians, aimed to provide an accurate historical perspective of abortion and abortion laws; the article describes how the history presented in the brief was largely ignored by in favor of other interpretations by Justice Samuel Alitothe author of the majority opinion in Dobbs.