SCOTUS To Hear Mississippi Abortion Case

Buckle up. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear one of the three arguments from a Mississippi abortion case that both pro-life and pro-choice advocates think could greatly affect the Roe/Casey precedents for abortion law in America.

The Washington Post:

The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will review a restrictive Mississippi abortion law that opponents of the procedure say provides a clear path to diminish Roe v. Wade’s establishment of the right of women to choose an abortion.

Abortion opponents for months have urged the court’s conservatives to seize the chance to reexamine the 1973 precedent. Mississippi is one among many Republican-led states that have passed restrictions that conflict with the court’s precedents protecting a woman’s right to choose before fetal viability.

In accepting the case, the court said it would examine whether “all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.” That has been a key component of the court’s jurisprudence.

The Mississippi law would ban almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with narrow exceptions for medical emergencies or fetal abnormalities. It has not gone into effect because a district federal judge and a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit said that it could not be squared with decades of Supreme Court precedents.

“In an unbroken line dating to Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court’s abortion cases have established (and affirmed, and reaffirmed) a woman’s right to choose an abortion before viability,” Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote for the appeals court. “States may regulate abortion procedures before viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right but they may not ban abortions.”

Both sides on abortion debate certain Amy Coney Barrett would restrict, if not overturn, landmark court decision

The court has now accepted for the term that begins in October two issues dear to conservatives: gun rights and the ability of states to restrict abortion. It is what they had hoped for once the court reached a 6-to-3 conservative majority with the addition of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative nominated by President Donald Trump.

“This is a landmark opportunity for the Supreme Court,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony List, said in a statement. “Across the nation, state lawmakers acting on the will of the people have introduced 536 pro-life bills aimed at humanizing our laws and challenging the radical status quo imposed by Roe. It is time for the Supreme Court to catch up to scientific reality and the resulting consensus of the American people as expressed in elections and policy.”

Abortion rights advocates said the court’s action should be greeted with “alarm bells.”

“The Supreme Court just agreed to review an abortion ban that unquestionably violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and is a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade,” said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, one of the groups representing a Jackson, Miss. clinic at the center of the case.

“This is not a drill,” added Elizabeth Nash of the Guttmacher Institute. “The [Supreme Court’s] decision comes at a time when conservative politicians in over a dozen states are dismantling abortion rights and access with a vengeance and could eclipse even the record of enacted restrictions set in 2011.”

Mississippi already bans abortions after 20 weeks, and it has also passed legislation that would ban most abortions once a fetal heartbeat is detected, or near six weeks. Lower courts declined to let that law, or the 15-week ban passed in 2018, take effect.