The SCOTUS Case We've Been Waiting For

The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a MAJOR abortion case.

The case – Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – is related to a Mississippi law that banned most abortions (with limited exceptions) after 15 weeks, which directly contradicts the 1973 landmark Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion nationwide prior to viability – Roe v. Wade.

As we pointed out, lower federal courts struck the law down, citing Supreme Court cases that declare that the right to abortion prevents states from protecting children in the womb before the child is “viable,” even when the child is as fully developed as in babies of 15 weeks’ gestation and beyond. From there, Mississippi filed a petition seeking the Supreme Court to intervene. We filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to put the Constitution itself ahead of its misguided pro-abortion precedents, and today the Supreme Court agreed to take the case.

CNN Supreme Court analyst and professor at the University of Texas School of Law Steve Vladeck described the significance of this case:

This will be, by far, the most important abortion case the Court will have heard since the Casey decision in 1992. If states are allowed to effectively ban abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, as the Mississippi law in this case does, then pregnant women would have a far shorter window in which they could lawfully obtain an abortion than what Roe and Casey currently require.

This case comes at a time when we have a new Supreme Court, including Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett. Many legal scholars and Justices have criticized Roe v. Wade on whether it aligns with the Constitution or not. However, this decision has been able to lead the way because of the judge-made doctrine of “stare decisis,” which simply put means cases that are based on the same facts and the same laws should be decided the same way. And this makes sense in the lower courts, but the Supreme Court has always been able to overrule even its own precedents when they do not comport with the Constitution. Indeed, the Constitution itself says that the Constitution itself – not opinions of the Supreme Court – is the “supreme law of the land.” This Mississippi case could determine if Roe v. Wade is still the correct framework to decide these cases.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Walter Weber explained the impact of this new state law if upheld:

The prohibition on abortions goes after 15 weeks of gestation. The consensus is that viability starts at approximately 20-22 weeks of gestation depending how you measure it. So, we are talking about 5-7 weeks before the baby would survive outside of the womb, there is still a baby there obviously – heavily developed, but it would be before the cutoff of viability. So, if the Supreme Court were to say the viability is a hard and fast line and you can’t ban abortions before that, as lower courts have ruled in this case and other cases, then that is the end of the statute. They would have to modify Roe v. Wade or reinterpret its provisions in order to uphold this law.

ACLJ Senior Counsel Cece Heil summed it up this way:

Roe v. Wade was a judicially created right to abortion. There is none in the Constitution. Life is protected by the Constitution. We need Justices who will follow the Constitution – who will not be bullied by Senators or anyone else, but they will be true to what their position is and follow the Constitution and protect life.

It is clear that the Biden Administration is further empowering the abortion industry and the abortion giant Planned Parenthood by reversing a pro-life Title X funding rule. As we told you, under the Trump Administration, no federal funding, through the Title X Family Planning Program, was provided to organizations where abortion services were part of their “family planning” services. The Biden Administration’s reversal of this rule guarantees $60 million worth of your tax dollars will be sent directly to Planned Parenthood year after year as they continue to perform record high numbers of abortions.

Today, we filed public comments on behalf of 557,000 ACLJ members – half a million people – who oppose this reversal.

The ACLJ is needed now more than ever to defend the lives of the unborn. We hope the Supreme Court has the courage to remain true to the Constitution on the issue now before it out of Mississippi. We have already filed an amicus brief asking the Court to take this case and it was granted. Next, we will file another brief on the merits of the case. We will continue to be a voice for the voiceless and make sure not one penny of your tax dollars goes to funding abortions.

Today’s full Sekulow broadcast is complete with even more analysis of the Mississippi case that could challenge Roe v. Wade at the Supreme Court.