Mississippi has a reasonable request: to ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The state passed a law in 2018 that would have prevented abortion after 15 weeks except to protect the life of the mother, but it never went into effect. Rather, the state’s abortion clinic, Jackson Women’s Health Organization, sued, challenging the bill’s legality.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization to decide whether or not states can restrict abortion before viability.
The fact that the legality of this law is being questioned is a reminder of how extreme abortion laws are in the U.S. — and how they don’t reflect the values of the public.
Globally, the U.S. is a rarity when it comes to abortion law. It’s one of seven countries worldwide that allows elective abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. It’s on that list along with countries such as China, North Korea, and Vietnam.
While people may think of Mississippi as some bastion of southern Christian conservatism, the gestational limit that the state wants to put in place is liberal, even by European standards. In Europe, 47 of the 50 countries ban elective abortion at or before 15 weeks gestation, according to the Charlotte Lozier Institute. That’s the part of the world many American liberals want to emulate.
The American people also think it’s a reasonable restriction. Although most Americans are pro-choice, they don’t support elective abortion in the second and third trimesters. A poll from the Associated Press earlier this year showed that just 34% of Americans generally support second-trimester abortions being legal, while 19% generally support third-trimester abortions being legal.
Abortion ends a human life no matter what point of the pregnancy it takes place in, but the human beings that Mississippi wants to protect are also highly developed. At 15 weeks, the developing human being has his or her own unique DNA, a detectable heartbeat, lungs, and a functioning brain and other vital organs, and he or she can swallow. Beginning at 16 weeks, the age at which elective abortion would be illegal, the unborn human is usually about 4 1/2 inches long and makes movements inside the womb.
It’s absurd that the Supreme Court would have to grant a state permission to protect vulnerable human beings from being deliberately killed. Mississippi wants to do something that is common practice in other first-world countries, is supported by most of the American people, and would save at least some lives.
This would be an improvement over the status quo. Hopefully, the Supreme Court recognizes that it’s a reasonable request and declares that Mississippi and other states can have the authority to enforce it.
Tom Joyce (@TomJoyceSports) is a political reporter for the New Boston Post in Massachusetts. He is also a freelance writer who has been published in USA Today, the Boston Globe, Newsday, ESPN, the Detroit Free Press, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Federalist, and a number of other outlets.
