Mwalimu-G
Elder Lister
Stephen Collinson and Caitlin Hu
'The President expressed his support for a ceasefire'
The Supreme Court, armed with its new conservative majority, has agreed to hear a major case next term that poses a major challenge to the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which enshrined a woman’s constitutional right to pursue an abortion. The fight between groups that style themselves pro-choice and pro-life over abortion is one of the most divisive social, religious and ideological issues and helps define the split between liberals and conservatives in US life.
The new case in question concerns a Mississippi law outlawing terminations after 15 weeks with very few exceptions. According to Roe, a woman has the right to seek abortions until the point when a fetus becomes viable, usually around the 24th week of a pregnancy. If the court backs the new Mississippi law, women would have far less time to get abortions than they do now and it would invite a flurry of even more restrictive state laws that could outlaw the practice entirely. The nine justices of the Supreme Court are likely to deliver their decision in summer 2022, in the middle of what is sure to be a bitter and tense campaign for midterm congressional elections that November.
That the Supreme Court is hearing the case at all is the result of a long struggle by conservative groups to remake the federal judiciary that culminated in former President Donald Trump’s reshaping of the Supreme Court in one single term. The top bench now has a 6-3 conservative majority, an encouraging ratio for supporters of the Mississippi law.
This situation is the chief legacy achievement of Mitch McConnell, the leader of Republicans in the Senate, whose constitutionally questionable maneuverings may have deprived Democratic presidents of two nominees. The looming debate over abortion is just one of the massively consequential policy areas expected to come before the court soon that could define US life, including new conservative bids to curtail gun control and voting access.
Such cases will highlight the looming culture clashes of the coming decades between a Supreme Court dominated by right-wing and religious judges and younger, secular and socially liberal Americans.