Judicial Rhetoric and the Politics of Abortion: A Critical Discourse Analysis of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization Opinion

Jensen, Agnes Kirk Kisum

4. semester

International Relations, MSc.

2025

2025-05-27

59 pages

This thesis uses Critical Discourse Analysis to analyze how and if political institutions influence Supreme Court decisions on abortion in the United States, with a specific focus on the roles of populism and moral conservatism in shaping judicial discourse. Since the Supreme Courts’ 2022 decision to overturn Roe v. Wade through the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organi-zation decision, there has been a notable shift in the legal landscape of reproductive rights in the U.S., where it is now with the authority of the individual states to make decisions on abortion legislation. With the use of CDA, in particular Fairclough’s three-dimensional model of discourse, this thesis analyzes the Supreme Court’s justice’s majority and dissenting opinions in the Dobbs case, examining how language, framing, and ideology are used in the construction of judicial authority. The analysis concludes that moral conservatism, that emphasizes tradition values, and populism, challenging the legitimacy of elite institutions, influence the way the ruling is written and justified, both in terms of language and legal reasoning. These ideological forces not only affect what the courts decide but also make people question whether the courts are truly fair and unbiased. Both majority and dissenting opinions were dominated by colored language and ideo-logical biases, which helps conclude that political institutions likely do have an influence over judicial discourse and thus the decision on abortion legislation in the country. It also opens to further discussion about which institutions should have the authority to make decisions on mat-ters of reproductive rights. If courts are increasingly shaped by political ideologies and institu-tional pressures, it raises important questions about democratic accountability, judicial inde-pendence, and the role of the judiciary in upholding things like human rights. Moreover, the findings suggest that the legal framing of abortion in the United States cannot be fully under-stood without examining the broader sociopolitical context in which these rulings occur. This includes the influence of elected officials, party ideologies, media narratives, and grassroots movements that apply pressure to the judicial system. By placing the Dobbs decision in a broad-er political and ideological context, the thesis shows how court decisions can be influenced by powerful institutions, instead of being made completely independently. This insight creates op-portunities for future research comparing how other democratic countries deal with the balance between legal authority, political pressure, and reproductive rights.

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