Lawyers on the Post-Dobbs Landscape: The Case of the Ballot Initiative

The Court’s unprecedented decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization relegated abortion regulation to a highly heterogeneous state institutional landscape. For lawyers, this institutional heterogeneity poses new questions of orientation, skill-building, and collaboration. In this Essay, Abrams examines the challenges facing lawyers in this new institutional landscape by focusing on one promising strategy for protecting abortion rights in conservative states: the initiative petition to amend a state’s constitution.