The US Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case from Mississippi that could reverse the court’s nearly half-century history. Roe v. Wade decision.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP
The US Supreme Court hears arguments Wednesday in a case from Mississippi that could reverse the court’s nearly half-century history. Roe v. Wade decision.
J. Scott Applewhite / AP
An epic debate at the US Supreme Court on Wednesday: The question is whether to reverse the court’s nearly half-century history. Roe v. Wade decisions and subsequent decisions declare that women have a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy.
So far, all abortion decisions of the court stand RoeWomen’s central framework – that women have the right to an abortion during the first two trimesters of pregnancy when the fetus cannot survive outside the uterus, until about 22 to 24 weeks.
Listen to the live debates starting at 10 a.m. ET.
But Mississippi law forbids abortion after 15 weeks. A separate law enacted a year later would ban abortions after six weeks, and while the six-week ban is unaffected in this case, the state is now asking the Supreme Court to overturn all abortions. previous abortion decision and return the abortion. questions for states.
This Supreme Court is more conservative
This is not the first time the court has requested a reversal Roe. The last major challenge to abortion rights came in 1992 in a case known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey. So it’s worth listening to what the three judges had to say at the time in reaffirming what they called “the central hold of Roe. “
Justice Sandra Day O’Connor spoke first from the bench: “Our obligation is to define the liberties of all, not to enforce our own code of ethics.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy continued: “Our cases recognize the right of the individual, married or single, to be free from undue interference by the government in matters that fundamentally affect a person such as decide whether to have or have children.”
And finally Justice David Souter: “The factual basis on which it rests today is no different from those on which the judgment was originally made … so passing in the absence of reason most persuasive … would destroy the legitimacy of the court. any serious question.”
Those justices, all appointed by Republican presidents, are center-conservatives, but a majority of today’s six Supreme Court justices, without exception, are conservative. significantly more conservative, and all had a history of opposing abortion rights.
Abortion “needs to be returned to state”
In this case, Mississippi held that Roe and Casey are seriously erroneous and undemocratic judgments. State Attorney General Lynn Fitch told Clear Life Pro-Life podcast that abortion “should be returned to the states. Unelected judiciary doesn’t have to make those decisions for us. … We all elect our legislators. …and then you know what? They’re responsible.”
But attorney Julie Rikelman of the Reproductive Rights Center will tell the judges that is wrong.
“The essence of a constitutional right is that it does not depend on the legislature. … It is a right that we all have. [that] she said in an interview with NPR.
Rikelman says she agrees that in Casey decided, the court allowed states to regulate abortion to further benefit the life of the state, but she added that since abortion is a constitutional right, what a state cannot do is ban women Women have the right to an abortion prior to the viability of the fetus, the point when fetal life, which can now exist outside the uterus, is preferred in most cases.
Mississippi’s only abortion clinic has not performed abortions in the past 16 weeks, earlier than clinics in most other states, but still 15 weeks later than the ban. Clinic staff say this is “because of all the other restrictions that Mississippi has in place … making it difficult for the clinic to provide care after that point.”
How risky is it?
Mississippi said it introduced a 15-week ban, in part because abortions are more dangerous later in pregnancy. “We know that the risk of dying during or after childbirth is substantially more than the risk of dying … from abortion,” said Gerald Harmon, President of the American Medical Association.
Abortion rights advocate Rikelman points to impressive statistics in Mississippi, compiled by the state’s Department of Health. “In Mississippi, a full-term pregnancy is 75 times more lethal than abortion,” she said.
However, for those who are against abortion, there are ethical issues involved. Attorney Charles Cooper, who filed a brief filing with the state, points to “new scientific facts” about fetal development.
He cites “discoveries about when a fetus … begins to form human physiology with fingers, toes and appendages.”
“It can make a sucking sound before it can survive when an unborn baby can start to feel pain,” he said. “These are all … matters of legitimate interest and scientific fact … that the people of the state have every right to consider.”
But that’s not all scientific fact, according to a compendium of the American Medical Association, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, other specialists in obstetrics and neonatology, and just about every volume. major medical groups in the United States. They dispute the concept of fetal pain tolerance, asserting that the neural pathways in the brain necessary to perceive pain simply haven’t developed before 24 weeks of gestation.
While some of Wednesday’s arguments may relate to that question, the judges will primarily focus on Roe and Casey, whether there is a constitutional right to abortion, and whether after nearly half a century and many decisions uphold the core of Roe, the court should reverse itself.
“In American jurisprudence rarely has a decision been widely criticized as wrong, and even seriously wrong, as Roe v. Wade“, Cooper said in an interview with NPR.
He argued that Roe wrong as the court of 1896 Plessy sues Ferguson decided to perpetuate apartheid – a decision that took more than half a century to reverse. “The justices of the court take an oath to uphold and defend the constitution, not their precedent,” Cooper said.
What does the Constitution say?
Cooper argues that the 14th Amendment text, history, and tradition do not support any abortion rights. How was it possible, he asked, that by the time the amendment was ratified in 1868, 30 of the 37 states had banned abortion?
But Rikelman replied that the 14th Amendment focuses on “life after birth,” and others have noted that its text guarantees rights to those “born or naturalized” in the United States.
She argued that under the amendment’s “apparent defense of liberties” the court protected marriage, contraception and intimate relationships, even though those words were not contained in the Constitution. , “just as it has protected our ability to make fundamental decisions about our bodies for more than 100 years.”
“It’s important to keep in mind,” she argues, “that courts have long said that a woman’s freedom is unique to pregnancy. Her body and health were profoundly affected when she became pregnant. pregnancy, as well as the course of her life, her ability to work, go to school, and prosper.”
A summary issued by Texas Right to Life countered by stating that “women can control their reproductive lives without having an abortion; they can do so by limiting sexual intercourse The only time an abortion is needed to ensure a woman’s ability to control her reproductive life is when the pregnancy is caused by an act of inconsistency, such as in the case of rape, when the pregnancy is life-threatening.”
As Cooper sees it, if the court overturns Roe, even without explicitly saying so, the country will return to the natural order of things, as the Founders intended.
“Issues concerning people’s moral, social and political values are decided by the people of their state,” he said. “That’s our system of federalism.”
Rikelman, however, objected that such a decision would lead to “chaos.”
“If the court overreacts Roe and said that banning abortion before viability is fair game … about half of the states in the country would be willing to ban abortion altogether or ban it at extremely early stages of pregnancy. period,” she commented.
A decision in this case is expected by the summer.
