The conservative-dominated Supreme Court appeared poised on Wednesday to curtail abortion rights in the United States by upholding a Mississippi law that prohibits the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Hundreds of protesters gathered outside the towering court in Washington to hear two hours of arguments in the most important abortion issue to reach the nation’s top court in 50 years. Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart urged the court to uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion restriction and to overturn the landmark rulings that established a woman’s constitutional right to an abortion.
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While acknowledging abortion is a “hard issue,” Stewart argued that individual states should be allowed to set their own rules. “When an issue affects everyone and when the Constitution does not take sides on it, it belongs to the people,” he said. “This court should overrule Roe and Casey and uphold the state’s law.”
In a 1973 ruling, Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court, by a 7-2 vote, held that access to abortion is a constitutional right until the fetus is viable outside the womb, typically 22 to 24 weeks. In a 1992 ruling, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the court upheld Roe and said states cannot impose an “undue burden” on a woman’s ability to get an abortion.
The law passed by the Republican-led legislature in Mississippi, a Bible Belt state, would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy and makes no exception for rape or incest. Should the Mississippi law be upheld, more than two dozen other US states are expected to seek to restrict abortion.
The court is expected to render its decision in June.
Flatly unconstitutional
At least four of the six conservative-leaning justices—including two nominated by Donald Trump—seemed receptive to overturning Roe v. Wade. The other two conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts and Neil Gorsuch, also a Trump nominee, appeared to favor a more cautious approach—upholding the Mississippi law while not going so far as to strike down Roe.
“The thing that is at issue before us today is 15 weeks,” Roberts said. Attorney Julie Rikelman, arguing for the Center for Reproductive Rights, said the Mississippi law is “flatly unconstitutional.”
“For a state to take control of a woman’s body and demand that she goes through pregnancy and childbirth—with all the physical risks and life-altering consequences that brings—is a fundamental deprivation of her liberty,” Rikelman said.
Rikelman argued for maintaining viability as the legal cutoff point for an abortion. “Without viability, there will be no stopping point,” she said. “States will rush to ban abortion at virtually any point in pregnancy.”
Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, representing the administration of President Joe Biden, said the court “has never revoked a right that is so fundamental to so many Americans.”
“The real world effects of overruling Roe and Casey would be severe and swift,” Prelogar said. Speaking to reporters after the court session, Biden said Roe v. Wade is a “rational position” and he will “continue to support it.”