Abortion Roe's moment of truth By Nicholas Rowan December 09, 2021 11:00 PM Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email Print Abortion Roe's moment of truth By Nicholas Rowan December 09, 2021 11:00 PM Twitter LinkedIn Facebook Email Print Protesters gather in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as the justices hear arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health on December 01. For several decades now, the pro-life legal movement has made essentially the same argument about abortion: The standard set by the landmark Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade and then modified in Planned Parenthood v. Casey is not only unconstitutional but sloppily assembled. The issue isn’t even the Supreme Court’s business. It should be thrown back to the states. This argument was on full display this month when the high court heard oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the most significant abortion case in 30 years (Casey was decided in 1992). It concerns a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy, which conflicts with the viability standard — when the baby could survive outside the womb — set in Casey, typically understood to begin at 24 weeks. Viability, Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart argued, is a “quintessentially legislative line” with no ties to the court’s power to interpret the Constitution. The state asked the court to determine if such bans are unconstitutional. The court is now weighing those arguments,...