The Mississippi Attorney General has filed a brief to the US Supreme Court making the case that the Court should consider and begin to make motions to repeal Roe V. Wade, the landmark decision in 1973 that established a modern precedent for current abortion practices.
In the brief, M.S. Attorney General Lynn Fitch argues that Roe and similar rulings are “egregiously wrong” and that they recognize and establish a right without said right having a basis in the U.S. Constitution. “[Roe V. Wade and similar cases] have inflicted profound damage… And nothing but a full break from those cases can stem the harms they have caused.”
Fitch filed this briefing concerning Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, an upcoming case on the Supreme Court docket that would review Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks. The court agreed to review this case, which makes it the first time the Supreme Court has reviewed a case involving a law that prohibits abortion access based on the amount of time before the fetus can live outside the mother.
The specifics of the case which the court intends to focus on will be around the question of “whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
For Fitch, the intent is to turn matters of abortion over to the states.“The national fever on abortion can break only when this court returns abortion policy to the states — where agreement is more common, compromise is often possible, and disagreement can be resolved at the ballot box.”
This decision has support from several notable Republicans. Missouri Senator Josh Hawley partnered with Mike Lee and Ted Cruz to pen a brief to overturn Roe V. Wade. Hawley is currently pushing for the court also to overturn Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which argues that states may not impose an “undue burden” on the right to abortion before fetal viability.
The Supreme Court’s next term begins in October, with a ruling on Dobbs arriving in the following year.