Judges signal they will be OK with new abortion limits, Roe may throw

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WASHINGTON (AP) – With the biggest challenge to abortion rights in decades, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court on Wednesday signaled that they would allow states to ban abortion early in pregnancy and could even revoke the right entirely. country that has existed for almost 50 years.

With hundreds of demonstrators outside chanting in favor and against, magistrates led arguments that could decide the fate of the historic 1973 court decision Roe v. Wade to legalize abortion throughout the United States and its decision in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, who reaffirmed Roe.

The result is unlikely to be known until next June. But after nearly two hours of argument, all six conservative justices, including three appointed by former President Donald Trump, have indicated they will uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

At the very least, such a decision would hurt Roe and Casey, allowing states to regulate but not ban abortion to the point of fetal survival, at approximately 24 weeks.

And there was also considerable support from conservative magistrates for the permanent removal of Roe and Casey. Justice Clarence Thomas was the only member of the court to openly call for an overruling of the two cases.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a Trump nominee, asked if the court would be better off completely withdrawing the abortion issue and let the states decide.

“Why would this court be the mediator instead of Congress, the state legislatures, the state supreme courts, the people who can solve it?” Kavanaugh asked. “And there will be different answers in Mississippi and New York, different answers in Alabama than in California.”

Abortion would soon be illegal or strictly restricted in nearly half of the states if Roe and Casey were revoked, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion rights. Legislatures in many Republican -led states are poised for action depending on the Supreme Court decision. On Wednesday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit overturned earlier decisions blocking a Tennessee law that included a ban on abortion when a fetal heartbeat was determined-about six weeks old-and ordered a re full court hearing.

People of color and way fewer will be affected disproportionately, say supporters of abortion rights.

Three liberal court justices said the return of Roe and Casey would significantly damage the court’s own legitimacy.

“Will this institution survive the stench it has caused in the public view that the Constitution and its reading are only political activities?” Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked.

In unusually tough terms for an argument in high court, Justice Stephen Breyer warned his colleagues that they “better be damned” before they throw out established abortion decisions.

Public opinion polls show support for Roe’s retention, though some surveys also find support for larger abortion restrictions.

Among the Conservatives, Chief Justice John Roberts is most interested in a less comprehensive ruling that would uphold Mississippi law but not explicitly overrule Roe and Casey.

“That may be what they’re asking, but the thing we’re talking about now is 15 weeks,” Roberts said, referring to Mississippi’s call to drop broader cases in addition to establishing its own law. .

More than 90% of abortions are performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, before viability, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

About 100 patients each year have an abortion after 15 weeks at the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi. The facility does not provide abortion after 16 weeks.

Even establishing a 15-week ban would mean a decline in decades-old survival lines. Proponents of abortion rights say that would effectively overthrow Roe and not leave a principled line on when abortion could be banned.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, another Trump nominee, suggested that the lack of a strict alternative could be a reason to completely dismiss Roe and Casey.

“You stressed that if 15 weeks is approved, we will have cases about 12 and 10 and 8 and 6, and my question is, is there a line there that the government believes is principled or not,” he asked. Gorsuch Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, the Biden administration attorney who supports the Mississippi clinic.

“I don’t think there is any line that can be more principled than viability,” Prelogar said.

Supporters on both sides of the abortion debate filled the sidewalk and street in front of the court, their dueling rallies being heard even inside the building. Conflicting signs read sentiments such as “Her Body Her Choice” and “God Hates the Shedding of Innocent Blood.” The court intensified security measures, including closing several streets around the building.

Perhaps in recognition of the weight of the issue before them, the magistrates sat on the bench at 10 a.m. without any smiles or private jokes they once shared.

The case came to court with a 6-3 conservative majority changed by justices named by Trump — Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.

A month ago, magistrates also heard arguments about a uniquely designed law in Texas that succeeded in resolving Roe and Casey’s decisions and banned abortions in the nation’s second-largest state after about six. week of pregnancy. The legal dispute over Texas law revolves around whether it can be challenged in federal court, rather than the right to an abortion.

The court has not yet ruled on Texas law, and magistrates have refused to adjourn it while the matter is under legal review.

The Mississippi case puts questions more centrally to the right to abortion. State Solicitor General Scott Stewart said Roe and Casey “haunt our country” and “have no basis in the Constitution.”

He compared those decisions to Plessy v. Ferguson, the infamous Supreme Court decision from 1896 that justified official segregation before it was repealed by Brown v. Board of Education after 58 years.

“We are running into 50 years of Roe. This is a massive wrong decision that has caused enormous damage to our country and will continue to do so and will kill countless human lives unless and until a court overrules it. this, “he said.

The Mississippi clinic argued that those two cases were properly decided and relied on women and their partners for nearly half a century, a point also made by Justice Elena Kagan.

Abortion decisions are “part of the fabric of women’s stay in this country,” she said.

Barrett approached the issue of women’s reliance on abortion decisions from elsewhere. She suggested that so -called safe haven laws in all 50 states that allow mothers to waive parental rights mean women cannot be forced into motherhood, which can limit employment and so on. more opportunities.

“Why don’t safe haven laws handle that problem?” he asked.

Barrett, who has a long record of personal opposition to abortion, acknowledged that the court still needs to address the issue of forcing women to remain pregnant against their will.

She described such a pregnancy as “a violation of bodily autonomy, you know, that we have in other contexts, like vaccines.”

In its earlier decisions, the court rooted the right to abortion in a section of the 14th Amendment which states that “no person may be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Same-sex marriage and other rights, based on the same provision but also not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution, could be threatened if Roe and Casey fall, the administration reasoned.

Abortion arguments typically see people camped in front of the court for several days in hopes of getting some of the few seats available to the public. But with the closure of the courthouse due to COVID-19, the audience of reporters, justices’ law clerks and some lawyers inside the courtroom was small.

If the court issues its decision in late June it will be more than four months before next year’s congressional election, and could be a cry of the campaign’s rallying season.

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Associated Press writer Parker Purifoy contributed to this report.

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