3 lawyers readying arguments in high court abortion case

WASHINGTON — Leading up to today’s major abortion case at the Supreme Court, the justices have heard from thousands of people and organizations urging the court to either save or scrap two historic abortion decisions.

But today they’ll hear from just three lawyers: one representing the state of Mississippi, another representing Mississippi’s only abortion clinic and the last representing the Biden administration. For each, it’s a chance to be part of what is likely to be a historic case.

The three are scheduled to appear before the justices for just over an hour’s worth of arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, though the arguments will likely go longer. Mississippi is asking the justices to overturn two seminal decisions, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, decisions that say women have a constitutional right to abortion before a fetus is viable.

Here are some things to know about the advocates arguing this week:

• SCOTT G. STEWART: Scott G. Stewart will defend a Mississippi law that would ban abortions after 15 weeks. Lower courts declared the law unconstitutional.

Though the case marks the first Supreme Court appearance for Stewart, 39, he will be familiar to some of the justices. A graduate of Princeton and Stanford’s law school, he was a law clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas in 2016 when the court dealt abortion opponents a loss, striking down Texas’ widely replicated rules that required doctors who perform abortions to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals and forced clinics to meet hospital-like standards for outpatient surgery.

• JULIE RIKELMAN: Arguing against the state of Mississippi is Julie Rikelman of the Center for Reproductive Rights who represents the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s lone abortion clinic. The clinic sued after the state passed its ban on abortions after 15 weeks.

Rikelman, 49, will be arguing before the court for the second time. Last year, before the death of liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and her replacement by conservative Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the Harvard law graduate argued and won another abortion case. In that case, the center represented a clinic and doctors asking the court to strike down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics.

• ELIZABETH PRELOGAR: The Biden administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Elizabeth Prelogar, will argue for the federal government. The administration’s position is that Roe and Casey were correctly decided and that overturning them would cause “grave harm.”