Abortion and Roe v. Wade
Government Information Resources to Stay Informed
Hi everyone,
An evening post today, but better late than never!
I’ll cut to the chase: there are some important government information resources that you can use to stay informed on how the post-Roe v. Wade era is taking shape. While this is a painful and tragic transition for many of us, it is not the time to shut the world out: we need to stay informed so that we can advocate for our rights. While government resources are never the only sources that should be consulted, there are some that play crucial roles in facilitating our access to information regarding abortion rights and the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Here are a few to start with:
Supreme Court Opinions:
You can access Supreme Court opinions in downloadable pdf form (usually minutes after they are delivered) on supremecourt.gov.
Scroll down to “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization” for the slip opinion on the constitutionality of Roe v. Wade.
Here, you can read through the original text of the document that you have likely seen quoted or paraphrased in news articles and social media posts. It’s a long document, but you can use CTRL+F to search for different sections, such as the majority opinion or dissents.
Congressional Research Service (CRS):
The Congressional Research Service tends to fall under the radar because its primary mission is to provide members of Congress with research related to various legislative topics, but it is also an excellent resource for the public to use. The reports are nonpartisan, extensively cited, and written in plain English. It makes sense that the rest of us might want to consult the same information on legistlative issues provided to members of Congress, seeing as we try to vote them in or out of office based on their stance related to said issues!
Use pertinent keywords in the search bar to come up with reports related to that subject. Here’s what I get when I search for “abortion” and organize it by descending date (to get the research that takes the recent Supreme Court decision into account):
As you can see, several extremely relevant reports come up. In particular, I highly recommend reading “Abortion, Data Privacy, and Law Enforcement Access: A Legal Overview”, “Congressional Authority to Regulate Abortion”, and “State Laws Restricting or Prohibiting Abortion”.
PubMed
You can conduct a similar search process in PubMed to what I did with the CRS, but this time you are searching a database for biomedical literature and citations rather than legislative research. PubMed is provided through the National Library of Medicine. While some scientific literature is written in less accessible language, a good place to start is reading the abstract texts, conclusion/discussion sections, and browsing an article’s citations.
The Constitution Annotated
The Constitution Annotated is a resource provided by Congress.gov. I’ve covered Congress.gov before in the context of researching bills. The Constitution Annotated is an extensive resource to help us understand the language of this foundational document and its interpretations as they relate to historical and current events. One of the duties assigned to the Librarian of Congress is to update the Constitution Annotated in order to inform members of Congress and the public (read more about the research methodologies here). When you browse the Constitution Annotated, you can read annotations for each amendment, which are updated periodically to reflect significant events. The annotation for the fourteenth amendment has since been revised to include the overturning of Roe v. Wade. It is an informative essay, and the citations are worth scrolling through, as well.
In Conclusion
I hope these resources provide you with a few ways to expand your knowledge on topics related to abortion, Roe v. Wade, and the U.S. Constitution. Accessing government information is crucial to maintaining our ability to stay informed and keep the government in check. It’s your right to access government information freely - use it!
As always, thank you for putting out this excellent government information. We need to access these resources now more than ever! I am grateful that our laws require, with a few exceptions, that all government business is public and must be preserved for the public to access.