The Supreme Court is back in session for its 2025-2026 term, but many people are still dealing with the fallout of its past rulings—namely, dozens of vague abortion restrictions enacted after the justices overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. These laws contain confusing dictates to doctors and patients that make them dangerous, even deadly.

In states with complete bans, pregnant people who want abortions have been forced to travel elsewhere or get pills by mail from doctors in states where shield laws protect providers from criminal and civil prosecution.

Meanwhile, anti-abortion states like Texas and Louisiana are trying to criminalize those doctors—and their patients. For advocates hoping to challenge such laws, today’s right-leaning judiciary presents a challenging legal landscape.

But there’s hope. I’m a legal historian, and I think I’ve dug up a promising argument in an unlikely place: Dobbs v. Jackson—the very same 2022 Supreme Court case that ended federal abortion protections in the U.S.

The legal landscape around out-of-state abortion care is messy.

In addition to attacks on shield laws, Louisiana and at least three other states have sued to ban the mailing of abortion medication. Idaho has an “abortion trafficking” law that outlaws helping a minor to travel across state lines for an abortion. Texans can’t drive through some parts of their state en route to get an out-of-state abortion.

The lead I found in Dobbs comes not from one of the liberal justices’ dissents but from Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion. Kavanaugh chose to write an entirely separate opinion, making an argument to preserve the constitutional right to interstate travel very plainly.

“[M]ay a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion?” Kavanaugh asked. “In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”

I suspect many readers are rolling their eyes at the thought of taking a conservative justice at his word. Clarence Thomas has questioned the very idea of relying on precedent, and the Court’s handling of Trump administration cases has drawn criticism from federal judges.

But under the circumstances, I........

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