The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider a case involving a state 15-week abortion ban.
The court will be taking up the case of Jackson Women’s Health Organization v. Dobbs, involving Mississippi’s ban on most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The high court agreed only to consider one question presented in the petition for certiorari, namely, “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional?”
Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, the law in question, was signed into law in 2018 but is not currently in effect. Although it banned most abortions after 15 weeks, it included exceptions for when the mother’s life or major bodily function is in danger, or in cases where the unborn child has a severe abnormality and is not expected to survive outside the womb at full term.
The law would be enforced by revocation of state medical licenses for doctors in violation, and a fine of up to $500 for falsification of medical records about the circumstances of an abortion.
Pro-life leaders praised the court’s decision to take up the case.
“States should be allowed to craft laws that are in line with both public opinion on this issue as well as basic human compassion, instead of the extreme policy that Roe imposed,” Jeanne Mancini, president of March for Life, stated. Roe v. Wade was the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide. The Roe ruling said that states could not ban abortions prior to the “viability” of the unborn child….
The above comes from a May 17 story on the site of the Catholic News Agency.
Just as the court had to send back to hell some previous decisions, they must do it again now. Sixty million legal abortions since Roe was decided, it is time to overturn this horrendous evil. If they do not, brace yourselves for more chastisements to come.
Let us stipulate that abortion is abominable! Having said that let’s consider the odds of RvW being overturned. First, the Mississippi law was written specifically to get a SCOTUS review that would end RvW. Second, this is a conservative court; a very conservative court. The conservatives on the court with maybe one exception are strict constructionist who don’t easily bring themselves to overturn 50 years of precedent. Like past courts that upheld RvW, this court has a Catholic majority. There will be a food fight between now and June of 2022 when the decision is read. Every pro-choice group in the country will be spending hundreds of millions of dollars to influence the court through advertising, marches, and elections. I won’t put any money on it, because the odds are too close, but I’m thinking, with today’s data, that the Mississippi law will be overturned.
Or, they could take a high school civics lesson that would teach that when the people don’t like the way
The Supreme Court interprets the constitution, they have the ability to amend sAid constitution.
Actually, I would hope that a high school civics lesson wouldn’t teach that the people have the ability to amend the Constitution. They don’t. There are a couple provisions for amending the Constitution, one of which is Congress proposing amendments that must be ratified by the state legislatures; the other being a Constitutional convention. Neither form involves “the people” amending the Constitution; rather, their elected representatives amend the Constitution.
Anonymous,
I doubt that the court will overturn Roe/Doe with this decision. If they do overturn Roe, it’ll be with another court case.
To the contrary, this has the potential to be the reversal of Roe. The Court is going to consider whether state laws prohibiting abortion before fetal viability are unconstitutional. In considering that question, the Court will look at Roe and the text of the Constitution, weigh the principle of stare decisis, yet it could overturn precedent and rule that Roe was wrongly decided because there is no constitutional basis in the text for saying yea or nay to the issue of state laws regarding abortion anytime during pregnancy, which includes the period before fetal viability. The Court could rule that on this matter the Constitution is silent, therefore states have the liberty to enact abortion legislation as they wish, thereby reversing Roe and making it a free-for-all in the different states. If that happens, bet that the Democrats in Congress will pass legislation to codify Roe in federal law. They might even try to do that before the Supreme Court hears this case as a way of preventing the reversal of Roe in this case.
Kevin T,
I agree that it has the potential. Nevertheless, I think the best they’ll do is to use the Mississippi decision as a primer to overturn Roe in the future. At least, this is my prediction.
I enjoyed your two posts, Kevin T.! We need to pray extra-hard, regarding this Mississsippi case now brought to SCOTUS!
Don’t fall for Big Pro Life’s fundraising this summer and well into next year over this. No amount of money donated to any Big Pro Life organization is going to make any difference in the outcome of this case. The arguments will be heard, the justices will vote and the court will issue its ruling.
But as this makes the news and Big Pro Life tries to whip prolifers up into a frenzy about it, don’t be misled by appeals for money to help win the case. It doesn’t work that way.
Oh no here we go again with the boogeyman “Big Pro Life”! What’s with your obsession with this or is this part of your training from racist Planned Parenthood? Go after anyone who wants to save human life from the violence of abortion. Calling good evil and evil good. Nice try but no one is buying into your scare tactics or misinformation.
Josh Gable– Wrong. Go to Mass today, do give extra $$$ to pro-life groups, and stop this “Big Pro-Life” nonsense. Unworthy of a Catholic. The poor, unborn babies are counting on us. The young people who often do very tough volunteer work for pro-life, evangelizing, changing minds and hearts for Christ and for helpless unborn children, nationwide– desperately need funds to finance all their hard work. They often get thrown off computer sites by liberal bigots, have advertising torn down in cities and on college campuses, are often prohibited on high school and college campuses (even Catholic ones!), barred from classrooms and lecture circuits, and endure extreme media bigotry and persecution. They are not well-funded, as only immoral, liberal causes get huge financial support, ruining the world with their Satanic, sinful activities, events, and programs.
First, I agree that there’s an outside chance that this conservative court will overturn Roe V Wade, but a chance. I would like to think that the SCOTUS judges take their obligations to view each case without regard to public opinion. Why? Because public opinion is fickle, ever changing according to the needs of those in power or those who yell most loudly. Would any of you be so gleeful about a court that will rule because they perceive that the righteous majority has spoken? What if that public opinion was definitely anti-Catholic, as in like the Dredd Scott decision where a freed slave was made a slave again because the SCOTUS judges at the time deemed it so. SCOTUS was to look at the facts, the laws, the precedents, not the opinions per se of those who have an agenda (pro or choice). They’re supposed to ignore the blaming rhetoric that others use in the media to drive up opinion. Let us hope they remain fairly neutral so that they can make informed decisions not on the basis of it will help one side or another, but on the facts of the case. As for changing or amending the Constitution to make abortion illegal, good luck with that – it leans too much on a conservative ideal that doesn’t exist in the majority, and not even close at that.