The Attack on Roe v. Wade Begins

 

The Attorney-General of Mississippi is asking the US Supreme Court to reverse the court's decision in the Roe v. Wade abortion case.

Calling the court’s precedent on abortion “egregiously wrong,” Attorney General Lynn Fitch (R) explicitly set the dispute over Mississippi’s restrictive law on a collision course with the landmark 1973 decision in Roe that first articulated the constitutional right to abortion.

“This Court should overrule Roe and Casey,” Fitch wrote, referring also to the court’s 1992 decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey. “Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong. They have proven hopelessly unworkable. … And nothing but a full break from those cases can stem the harms they have caused.”

Supreme Court precedent tracing back to Roe prohibits states from banning abortion before fetal viability, which occurs around 24 weeks. The Mississippi law to be reviewed during the court’s upcoming term, which begins in October, creates only narrow exceptions from its 15-week ban.

“The court cannot uphold this law in Mississippi without overturning Roe’s core holding,” Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told reporters in May when the court took up the case. “The stakes here are extraordinarily high.”

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