The changing landscape on abortion following Dobbs has not only sparked a vigorous debate in the United States, but also abroad. Its recriminalization in America led to an outcry in peer Western democracies, whose leaders widely condemned the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision. Yet the social and historical reasons for this international divide are poorly understood. This Article sheds light on the question through an in-depth comparison of America and Canada from Roe to Dobbs, as the neighboring nations’ abortion histories have been intertwined in intriguing and overlooked ways. When the U.S. Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade in 1973, it heartened Canadian reformers who repeatedly cited Roe as a model to follow. The Supreme Court of Canada would not decriminalize abortion until 1988 in its landmark Morgentaler decision—fifteen years after Roe. This history, documented with original English- and French-language sources, reveals as much about America as about Canada. If both countries had seemingly converged in liberalizing abortion once their high courts reached these seminal decisions, their paths would markedly diverge in subsequent decades. In America, the pro-choice movement increasingly was on the retreat after Roe as anti-abortion forces gained ground. In Canada, by contrast, the anti-abortion movement gradually collapsed following Morgentaler, as in much of the modern Western world. Still, in each country jurisdictions opposed to abortion tried to regulate it out of existence. It was not before 2016 that Prince Edward Island—the last Canadian province to hold out—joined the rest of the country in allowing abortion. Only a few years later, the U.S. anti-abortion movement succeeded in overturning Roe, leading to the recriminalization of abortion in over a dozen American states in stark contrast to the historical evolution of reproductive rights. Americans seeking to reinvigorate reproductive rights point to Canada as a model to follow in the post-Dobbs era. Canada now protects abortion far better than the neighbor from which it once sought inspiration. This extraordinary historical reversal and role reversal deserves closer attention, as it offers insight into numerous dimensions of the abortion debate.

Cuba’s 2019 Constitution and the 2022 Law on the Process of Protection of Constitutional Rights create a mixed model of review. Accordingly, the legislature and the executive review the constitutionality of legislation and regulations, while the courts review the constitutionality of state actions. Synthesizing comparative constitutional law and new institutionalism in political science, this article argues that the mixed constitutional review in Cuba is shaped by different historical influences; competing socialist and liberal ideas and discourse; competing political interests; and competing socialist and universal values. The Cuba experience presents a new hope for other socialist countries like China and Vietnam where the vehement struggle for judicial review has largely failed. Judicial review is not impossible in the socialist regimes. In such regimes, political review can be retained, but judicial review of the constitutionality of state actions can be introduced without undermining legislative supremacy. Yet, Cuba’s version of mixed constitutional review is limited: courts are not allowed to review legislation and regulations. In the longer term, an expanded model of mixed constitutional review can be adopted in Cuba and other socialist states, which would integrate political review and judicial review of regulations and legislation.

China’s reproductive policies, including the One-Child, Two-Child, and Three-Child Policies, have been widely criticized for violating women’s reproductive rights through coercive enforcement measures such as forced abortion, sterilization, and employment discrimination. This Article argues that these policies violate international human rights law, particularly the right to freely determine the number and spacing of children as protected under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). Despite international scrutiny, China has largely resisted direct responses to criticisms from treaty-based and charter-based human rights monitoring bodies, including the CEDAW Committee, the Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures under the United Nations Human Rights Council. However, international pressure has had some influence, compelling China to make limited policy adjustments, such as abolishing explicit penalties for exceeding the birth quota and taking some measures to address employment discrimination. This Article further evaluates the effectiveness of existing international enforcement mechanisms and proposes additional strategies to enhance their impact. It suggests that human rights monitoring bodies should directly challenge China’s justification that population control policies are necessary for economic development and emphasize the equal importance of all human rights, including reproductive rights, under international law. By increasing international scrutiny and directly refuting China’s justifications, human rights institutions can exert greater pressure to prompt meaningful policy changes and enhance the protection of reproductive rights in China.