WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday took the dramatic step of overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that recognized a woman’s…
The court, in a 6-3 ruling powered by its conservative majority, upheld a Republican-backed Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks. The justices held that the Roe v. Wade decision that allowed abortions performed before a fetus would be viable outside the womb – between 24 and 28 weeks of pregnancy – was wrongly decided because the U.S. Constitution makes no specific mention of abortion rights.
Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic remaining in Mississippi https://www.reuters.com/world/us/lone-mississippi-clinic-front-line-us-supreme-court-abortion-battle-2021-11-29, challenged the 2018 law and had the support of Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration at the Supreme Court. The law allows abortions when there is a “medical emergency” or a “severe fetal abnormality” but does not have an exception for pregnancies resulting from rape or incest.
Chief Justice John Roberts denounced the May 2 leak of Justice Samuel Alito’s draft opinion in the case and announced an investigation to identify the culprit. Supreme Court leaks are extremely rare, especially concerning internal deliberations before a ruling is issued. Following the leak, Biden condemned the overturning of Roe as a “radical” step and urged Congress to pass legislation protecting abortion access nationally.
Since 2018, the court lost two champions of abortion rights. Liberal Justice Ruther Bader Ginsburg died in 2020, being replaced by Amy Coney Barrett, who as an academic before joining the judiciary signaled support for overturning Roe https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-court-barrett/trumps-supreme-court-nominee-advocated-overturning-legalized-abortion-idINKBN26M7IS.
Opinion polls show a majority of Americans support abortion rights. But overturning Roe has been a goal of anti-abortion activists and Christian conservatives for decades, with annual marches in Washington including in January of this year.
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