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Mississippi argues to overturn Roe v. Wade

State petitions Supreme Court to give states control

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS, Associated Press
Published: July 22, 2021, 4:11pm

JACKSON, Miss. — The U.S. Supreme Court should overturn its landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide and let states decide whether to regulate abortion before a fetus can survive outside the womb, the office of Mississippi’s Republican attorney general argued in papers filed Thursday with the high court.

“Under the Constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability? Yes. Why? Because nothing in constitutional text, structure, history, or tradition supports a right to abortion,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and four of her attorneys wrote in the brief.

The arguments are a direct challenge to the central finding of the court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and its 1992 decision in a Pennsylvania abortion case. Both rulings said states may not put an undue burden on abortion before viability. The Mississippi attorneys argue that the rulings are “egregiously wrong.”

The Mississippi case is the first big abortion-rights test in a Supreme Court reshaped with three conservative justices nominated by former President Donald Trump.

A 6-3 conservative majority, with the three Trump nominees, said in May that the court would consider arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban abortion at 15 weeks. Justices are likely to hear the case this fall and could rule on it in the spring.

Nancy Northup is president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is defending Mississippi’s only abortion clinic in its challenge of the 15-week ban. She said Thursday that half of the states are poised to ban abortion altogether if Roe v. Wade is overturned.

“Today’s brief reveals the extreme and regressive strategy, not just of this law, but of the avalanche of abortion bans and restrictions that are being passed across the country,” Northup said in a statement. “Their goal is for the Supreme Court to take away our right to control our own bodies and our own futures — not just in Mississippi, but everywhere.”

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