CNS and staff reporters
WHEN the United States Supreme Court hears oral arguments today for the biggest abortion case in decades, all eyes – and ears – will be on the court.
Roe v Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that declared a nationwide right to abortion, is facing its most serious challenge in 30 years in front of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority that has been remade by three appointees of President Donald Trump.
A ruling that overturned Roe and the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v Casey would lead to outright bans or severe restrictions on abortion in 26 states, according to academic organisations that support abortion rights.
The case before the nation’s high court, Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organisation, is an appeal from Mississippi to keep its ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
This ban was struck down by a federal District Court in Mississippi in 2018 and upheld a year later by the New Orleans-based US Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit.
The Supreme Court has never allowed states to ban abortion before the point at roughly 24 weeks when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
The justices are separately weighing disputes over Texas’ much earlier abortion ban, at roughly six weeks, though those cases turn on the unique structure of the law and how it can be challenged in court, not the abortion right.
The Supreme Court had never before even agreed to hear a case over a pre-viability abortion ban.
But after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s death last year and her replacement by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the third of Mr Trump’s appointees, the court said it would take up the case.
Trump had pledged to appoint “pro-life justices” and predicted they would lead the way in overturning the abortion rulings. Only one justice, Clarence Thomas, has publicly called for Roe to be overruled.
The court could uphold the Mississippi law without explicitly overruling Roe and Casey, an outcome that would satisfy neither side.
Abortion opponents argue that the court essentially invented abortion law in Roe and Casey, and shouldn’t repeat that mistake in this case.
