Abortion is back on the docket. According to the Associated Press, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a Mississippi case that experts say could cause 50 years of progress on the issue of reproductive rights to be rolled back.
This time, the state is asking the court to uphold a 15-week abortion ban. On Monday, the state claims they aren’t asking the Supreme Court to overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling nor a ruling that reaffirmed it some two decades later. However, abortion rights activists claim that there is no way that Mississippi can win this case without reproductive rights losing.
“The court cannot uphold this law without overturning the principal protections of Roe v. Wade,” Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said. Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is not slated to have a final ruling until June 2022.
The 2018 Mississippi abortion law that bans the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy was struck down by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Supreme Court precedent holds that 22 weeks is the standard by which states must craft their abortion laws. Twenty-two weeks is considered the point of fetal viability. Mississippi is asking the top court to reconsider that standard in the interest of maternal health and potential life.
This case is scary for some abortion activists because a much more conservative court will be hearing this case. Due to former President Trump’s last-minute appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett and the earlier appointments of Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, it has given the court a 6-3 conservative majority.
This is not the only abortion case that has come across the Supreme Court’s desk. In March, Politico reported that the court had agreed to hear a case brought by Daniel Cameron, Kentucky’s Attorney General, against a women’s surgical center.
Cameron is seeking to have a common procedure used for pregnancies after 15 weeks banned. The procedure is called dilation and evacuation, usually referred to as a D&E. The lower courts also blocked that ban, but under a new Democratic governor, Cameron has decided to fight at the highest level.
In either case, if the states are successful, the door could be open for sweeping changes in abortion laws at the lower levels. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the only clinic that provides abortion services in Mississippi.
“Over 20 states would prohibit abortion outright. Eleven states —including Mississippi — currently have trigger bans on the books which would instantaneously ban abortion if Roe is overturned,” Northup said.
Both cases are slated to begin later in the year.
