Supreme Court to Review Mississippi Law Limiting Abortion Rights - WSJ
By: Brent Kendall and Jess Bravin (WSJ)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
WASHINGTON—The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to consider the legality of a Mississippi abortion law that seeks to ban the procedure after 15 weeks of pregnancy, a case that gives the justices an opportunity to revisit the court's precedents protecting abortion rights.
Lower courts invalidated the Mississippi law, saying an unbroken line of Supreme Court precedent back to its landmark 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade established that women had a constitutional right to choose abortion before fetal viability, meaning states can regulate—but not outright ban—the procedure in that initial period of pregnancy.
Mississippi enacted its law in 2018. In its petition to the high court, the state argued the justices should reject viability as a standard for when states can ban abortion, saying lawmakers had legitimate interests in protecting fetal life from the outset.
Mississippi is one of several Republican-led states that have passed more aggressive restrictions on abortion in recent years. Those states have been more willing to test the legal waters since the 2018 retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, a maverick conservative who for years was the court's pivotal vote protecting abortion rights. The court shifted further to the right last year after the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a leading member of the court's liberal wing. She was replaced by Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a conservative whose background suggests she is skeptical of the current scope of abortion rights.
An abortion facility in Mississippi that challenged the ban urged the Supreme Court not to hear the case and leave the lower court rulings in place. The state's ban extended well before viability and contravened the fundamental tenet of the high court's abortion-rights precedents, the clinic argued in court papers.
The Supreme Court will consider the case during its next term, which begins in October.
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