The Story:
A week ago, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments that raised anew the question of the constitutionality of blanket prohibitions of abortion. The court may use Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization as a vehicle for overturning the 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, entirely, or may stop just short of that.
Background:
Jackson Women’s Health Organization is the only licensed abortion clinic in Mississippi. As soon as the state enacted a law banning nearly all abortions, Jackson and its medical director filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction against its enforcement. So was born the litigation now before the Supreme Court.
In Pill Form:
By the end of the argument Wednesday most observers were persuaded that there exists a majority of votes on the Court to disrupt, if perhaps not explicitly to overturn, Roe v. Wade by upholding enforcement of the Mississippi law. Amy Howe, a law professor who has taught courses on Supreme Court litigation at both Stanford and Harvard Law, suggested in a blog entry that the Court wants to leave a short period of constitutionally protected abortion within 15 weeks of conception, (about 3 1/2 months) so it would not have to write the words “Roe is no longer the law.”
