As always, you can find the Dobbs v. Jackson decision here.

Paragraph 4 of 8

Sentence 1 of 2

This sentence contains two claims:

“In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, 300 U.S. 379 (1937), the Court overruled Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C., 261 U.S. 525 (1923), which had held that a law setting minimum wages for women violated the ‘liberty’ protected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. Id., at 545.”

The claims:

• “In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, [. . .] the Court overruled Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C.”
• “Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C. [. . .] had held that a law setting minimum wages for women violated the ‘liberty’ protected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”

These claims seem to be pretty easily confirmed. Early in the West Coast Hotel decision there is a discussion of the Due Process clause:

“The principle which must control our decision is not in doubt. The constitutional provision invoked is the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, governing the States, as the due process clause invoked in the Adkins case governed Congress. In each case, the violation alleged by those attacking minimum wage regulation for women is deprivation of freedom of contract. What is this freedom? The Constitution does not speak of freedom of contract. It speaks of liberty and prohibits the deprivation of liberty without due process of law. In prohibiting that deprivation, the Constitution does not recognize an absolute and uncontrollable liberty. Liberty in each of its phases has its history and connotation. But the liberty safeguarded is liberty in a social organization which requires the protection of law against the evils which menace the health, safety, morals and welfare of the people. Liberty under the Constitution is thus necessarily subject to the restraints of due process, and regulation which is reasonable in relation to its subject and is adopted in the interests of the community is due process. This essential limitation of liberty in general governs freedom of contract in particular.

That passage also includes a nice little meditation on the concept of liberty that might illuminate the discussion in Part II of Dobbs. And then the end of the decision at page 400:

“Our conclusion is that the case of Adkins v. Children’s Hospital, supra, should be, and it is, overruled.”

So the first claim is true. What about the second? I wish I could say. I’ve read page 545 of Adkins several times, and if this claim is addressed there it’s by implication. I’m going to shelve this for now and call it undetermined.

So I have one true claim:

• “In West Coast Hotel Co. v. Parrish, [. . .] the Court overruled Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C.”

And one undetermined claim:

• “Adkins v. Children’s Hospital of D. C. [. . .] had held that a law setting minimum wages for women violated the ‘liberty’ protected by the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.”