Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch asked the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday to defend “the right of the people to pass laws that protect life and women’s health,” urging the court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
“This Court’s abortion precedents depart from a sound understanding of the Constitution. In Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992), this Court held that abortion is a right specially protected by the Fourteenth Amendment, and so laws restricting it must withstand heightened scrutiny,” Fitch wrote in a brief. “This Court should overrule Roe and Casey.”
“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong,” the brief stated. “The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition.”
The brief was filed in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which will be the first major abortion case that the court’s three new conservative justices will hear. The case centers around the question of whether all pre-viability bans on abortions are unconstitutional, the Daily Caller reports.
NEW: In major abortion case at the Supreme Court, Mississippi is explicitly asking in court papers filed today for the justices to overturn landmark Roe v. Wade ruling pic.twitter.com/jqrscxE1I6
— Lawrence Hurley (@lawrencehurley) July 22, 2021
“There are those who would like to believe that Roe v. Wade settled the issue of abortion once and for all,” Fitch said in a separate statement. “But all it did was establish a special-rules regime for abortion jurisprudence that has left these cases out of step with other Court decisions and neutral principles of law applied by the Court.”
“As a result, state legislatures, and the people they represent, have lacked clarity in passing laws to protect legitimate public interests, and artificial guideposts have stunted important public debate on how we, as a society, care for the dignity of women and their children,” Fitch continued. “It is time for the Court to set this right and return this political debate to the political branches of government.”
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