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Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department “strongly disagrees” with the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, warning states about bans of the “abortion pill.”
SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE, PAVING WAY FOR STATE ABORTION BANS
“The Justice Department strongly disagrees with the Court’s decision. This decision deals a devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States,” Garland said. “The Justice Department will work tirelessly to protect and advance reproductive freedom … The Justice Department will use every tool at our disposal to protect reproductive freedom.”
The attorney general added: “We stand ready to work with other arms of the federal government that seek to use their lawful authorities to protect and preserve access to reproductive care. In particular, the FDA has approved the use of the medication Mifepristone. States may not ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with the FDA’s expert judgment about its safety and efficacy.”
Mifepristone is commonly known as the “abortion pill.”
The Supreme Court’s Friday ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization overturned 1973’s Roe and 1992’s Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, which had declared a constitutional right to abortion and severely limited the ability of states to outlaw the practice.
Mississippi’s 2018 Gestational Age Act stated that “except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform … an abortion of an unborn human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human being has been determined to be greater than fifteen weeks.”
An abortion clinic challenged the law in federal court and claimed it violated Supreme Court precedent on abortion. This eventually made its way to the Supreme Court, where the law was upheld and Roe and Casey were tossed.
SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS ROE V. WADE
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the opinion, in which Justices Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett joined. Thomas and Kavanaugh also filed concurring opinions, while Roberts filed an opinion concurring in the judgment. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan filed a dissenting opinion.
Garland lamented that “the Supreme Court has eliminated an established right that has been an essential component of women’s liberty for half a century — a right that has safeguarded women’s ability to participate fully and equally in society.”
Since the May 2 leak of a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion, there have been heightened threats against Supreme Court justices and anti-abortion advocates, including a rash of attacks and vandalism targeting anti-abortion activist groups and pregnancy centers across the country.
More than 100 House Republicans sent a letter to Garland last week calling on the DOJ to investigate the incidents as acts of domestic terrorism.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) also pressed Garland on the domestic terrorism classification earlier this month.
The House GOP letter argued that “terrorists have targeted numerous pro-life crisis pregnancy centers — two of which culminated in the firebombing and destruction of property by the terrorist group Jane’s Revenge” in Buffalo, New York, and Madison, Wisconsin.
“The FBI is investigating a series of attacks and threats targeting pregnancy resource centers and faith-based organizations across the country,” a spokesperson for the FBI’s national press office said last week. “The FBI takes all threats seriously and we continue to work closely with our law enforcement partners and will remain vigilant to protect our communities.”
Earlier in June, 16 Republican senators, along with a number of national anti-abortion groups, sent a letter to Garland telling him “the criminal acts perpetrated against those who oppose legalized abortion are a clear effort to intimidate or coerce individuals who hold pro-life values.”
The gun-toting suspect who traveled from California to Maryland this month in an alleged plot to kill Brett Kavanaugh over the leak of the draft Dobbs decision has been indicted by a federal grand jury for an “attempt to assassinate” the Supreme Court justice. Nicholas Roske, 26, showed up at Kavanaugh’s house after midnight with burglary tools, a knife, a gun, and a pair of special boots with outer soles allowing stealth movement inside a house, though he walked away when he spotted a pair of deputy U.S. marshals, who were part of the Supreme Court justice’s security force, outside Kavanaugh’s home, according to court records.
Roske told investigators he was angry about the leak of the draft Dobbs decision and also believed Kavanaugh would play a role in upholding Second Amendment rights.
GOP Senate leadership also sent a letter to the DOJ last week demanding answers over a lack of criminal prosecution surrounding “illegal picketing” outside the homes of justices.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The U.S. attorney and the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the nation’s capital said in a joint statement this month that “we will not tolerate violence, destruction, interference with government functions, or trespassing on government property,” including at the Supreme Court. It did not mention the justices’ homes.
