SW News: As the US Supreme Court takes up the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization case this fall in order to examine the state of Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, several Catholic leaders, pro-life organizations, Republican Congressmen and a host of Governors have expressed support for the ban. They have also urged the top court to re-examine its earlier rulings on abortion.

On July 27, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops stressed in an amicus brief that abortion is not a right created by the constitution and it was inherently different from other personal decisions to which the top court has granted constitutional protection.

Referring to the two major abortion rulings, the brief warned that if the top court treats abortion as a constitutional issue, it will face questions in the future regarding what sorts of abortion regulations are permitted. One of the two landmark rulings of the US Supreme Court was the 1973 Roe v. Wade judgment that legalized abortion in the country. The other ruling is the 1992 Casey v. Planned Parenthood that affirmed Roe and stated that a state regulation on termination of pregnancy could not be imposed on a woman who wants an abortion before the fetus attains viability.

Two dioceses of Mississippi and religious groups have also echoed the view of the US Catholic bishops regarding support for the ban on abortions after 15 weeks.
Dobbs v. Jackson was filed last year. But the justices agreed to take it up only in late May. The case centers around an appeal from Mississippi to allow its ban to remain as it was struck down by a federal District Court in 2018 and upheld by the US Court of for the 5th Circuit in New Orleans a year later.

“The Mississippi case offers the cleanest opportunity since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973 for the court to revisit its deepest flawed and harmful jurisprudence,” said a brief filed by O. Carter Snead, law professor at the University of Notre Dame and director of the university’s Center for Ethics and Culture, and Mary Ann Glendon, former U.S. ambassador to the Vatican.