At the July meeting, I had suggested a possible article be reading the Roe v. Wade overturn opinion and doing ctrl+F in it and looking at mentions of privacy and the group seemed amenable. I wrote that up below at the very end of this email.

Best,

-Wilhelmina Randtke

Privacy implications of Dobbs v. Jackson

Ctrl+F and look at privacy mentions in Dobbs v. Jackson available at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/ . The whole text of the opinion/concurrences/dissent is something like 213 pages if you read it all! But we will only read a little.

First off, to set the stage... one of the rights that was the basis for Roe v. Wade was a "penumbra of privacy" in the U.S. Constitution.

To understand changes to that right, we all go to Dobbs v. Jackson at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/ and look at references to privacy. I think that the best way to break it down is to look at the links at the top to "Syllabus, Opinion, Concurrence, Dissent", ctrl+F for "priva" in each one, and read just the paragraphs that mention privacy.

Here's what those sections are and what it means:
Syllabus = Not binding. A short summary of the case. Has no impact on anything and it's just there to give context to the whole long 213 page case. We don't need to look at this, since only a little piece of the case is about privacy.
Opinion (Alito) = Binding law. This is the most important part. This is what the law is now.
Concurrence (Thomas) = Not binding. Can be used to make an argument. This one was written by judge Thomas.
Concurrence (Kavanaugh) = Not binding. Can be used to make an argument. This one was written by judge Kavanaugh.
Concurrence (Roberts) = Not binding. Can be used to make an argument. This one was written by judge Roberts.
Dissent (Kagan) = Not binding.

For the reading, we can click into each tab for Opinion/Concurrence/Dissent at https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/597/19-1392/ and ctrl+F for "priva". There are 23 references to privacy throughout all 213 pages of the opinion/concurrences/dissent, so it's a short reading if we focus on privacy.

Essentially, there are 2 privacy rights: (1) not having info known, and (2) not having behavior changed. Dobbs v. Jackson is about privacy as not having behavior changed and weakening that privacy right. It's a right that is probably more important today with some systems that can predict and influence behavior than it was in the 1970s.