The Supreme Court overturned the half-century-old ruling in Roe v. Wade that legalized abortions nationwide, giving states the power to determine limits on when a woman can terminate a pregnancy.
A majority of justices, each appointed by Republican presidents, joined the opinion authored by Justice Samuel Alito in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, ruling Mississippi can maintain its law banning abortion after 15 weeks of gestation. In addition to Alito, those voting in favor were Amy Coney Barrett, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts.
“The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives,” a syllabus of the opinion said.
LIVE BLOG: SUPREME COURT HANDS STATES POWER TO REGULATE ABORTION BY OVERTURNING ROE
The justices voted 6-3 to uphold Mississippi’s abortion restrictions. The reasoning for the opinion overturning Roe came down to a 5-1-3 split, with Alito’s majority ruling overturning Roe and Roberts concurring in his own opinion because he wanted a narrower ruling that focused solely on upholding Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks. Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan dissented.
“Whatever the exact scope of the coming laws,” the dissenters wrote, “one result of today’s decision is certain: the curtailment of women’s rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens.”
The justices in the minority also criticized the majority’s “cavalier approach to overturning this Court’s precedents.”
A ruling in the case follows the unprecedented leak of the draft opinion on May 2, which signaled to the nation an imminent curtailing of decades of abortion access established under Roe and the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment,” Alito wrote. “That provision has been held to guarantee some rights that are not mentioned in the Constitution, but any such right must be ‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’ and ’implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.’”
“It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives,” Alito added.
The high court decided Roe in 1973 under a fundamental “right to privacy” inherent in the due process clause of the 14th Amendment, protecting a woman’s choice to have an abortion in a 7-2 ruling. Years later, the court again reaffirmed Roe when it ruled in a 5-4 decision on Casey, which reversed the previous trimester framework in favor of a viability analysis, allowing states to implement abortion restrictions during the first trimester of pregnancy so long as they did not impose an “undue burden.”
In the initial leaked opinion, Alito maintained that no such right to abortion was part of the right to privacy and that neither of those facets backing the logic behind the landmark 1973 case are actually outlined in the Constitution.
Since the leak, there has been a national outcry among abortion activists voicing the need to protect Roe and Casey, with protests outside the homes of Alito, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Chief Justice John Roberts. The draft opinion sparked a near-instantaneous protest outside the Supreme Court on the same evening of the leak, and large, unscalable fences were placed outside the court in response to continued protests on May 4 as the nation awaited the final published opinion.
Tensions escalated earlier this month when an armed man who allegedly sought to kill Kavanaugh was arrested near the justice’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The suspect, 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske, had flown in from California and said he was motivated by the leaked draft opinion signaling the curtailing of Roe, in addition to frustrations surrounding a forthcoming opinion in a Second Amendment rights case amid high-profile instances of gun violence in recent months.
Abortion groups such as Planned Parenthood have taken a vehement stance since the draft opinion leak, arguing the implications are “horrifying and unprecedented.”
“While we have seen the writing on the wall for decades, it is no less devastating and comes just as anti-abortion rights groups unveil their ultimate plan to ban abortion nationwide,” said Alexis McGill Johnson, president and CEO of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement.
A recent Fox News poll completed one day before the leaked Supreme Court document showed 60% of respondents say Roe should be upheld with some exceptions, primarily centered on when fetal viability begins.
“Americans’ opinions on abortion are more nuanced than is often assumed,” Republican pollster Daron Shaw said. “Sixty percent think abortion should be legal, but with restrictions. The question is where to draw the line.”
When justices heard arguments over Dobbs in December, the court’s majority of six Republican-appointed justices raised significant doubts about the jurisprudence behind the 1973 and 1992 cases that established the right to abortion in the United States, Roe and Casey, respectively.
Republican-led states have adopted restrictive abortion laws in recent months, including a Texas law that bans abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, which is typically around six weeks of gestation. The law went into effect in September and is enforced by allowing private individuals to file lawsuits against anyone who aids and abets an abortion.
In a concurring opinion by Kavanaugh, the justice cautioned that states should not bar their residents from traveling to other states to seek an abortion.
“Some of the other abortion-related legal questions raised by today’s decision are not especially difficult as a constitutional matter,” Kavanaugh wrote. “For example, may a State bar a resident of that State from traveling to another State to obtain an abortion? In my view, the answer is no based on the constitutional right to interstate travel.”
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
The overturning of Roe signals abortion likely becoming illegal in at least 13 states: Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming.
As of June, 26 states are set to ban or limit abortion access immediately as a result of the Dobbs ruling, according to the Guttmacher Institute.
<mediadc-iframe data-state="{"cms.site.owner":{"_ref":"00000161-3486-d333-a9e9-76c6fbf30000","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b93390000"},"cms.content.publishDate":1656081037710,"cms.content.publishUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"cms.content.updateDate":1656081037710,"cms.content.updateUser":{"_ref":"00000177-1b39-d2c7-af7f-5fbf13ff0004","_type":"00000161-3461-dd66-ab67-fd6b933a0007"},"iFrameEmbedCode":"","_id":"00000181-961f-ddcb-a3e1-df5f333c0000","_type":"00000161-b425-d761-a563-f7e77e270000"}”>iFrame Object
