WASHINGTON (AP) – The Supreme Court has ended the nation’s constitutional defense against abortion, which has been in place for nearly 50 years, with a decision by its conservative majority to repeal Rowe against Wade. Friday’s result is expected to lead to abortion bans in approximately half of the states.
The decision, unthinkable just a few years ago, was the culmination of decades of efforts by opponents of abortion, made possible by the bold right-wing side of the court, backed by three appointees to former President Donald Trump.
Both sides predicted that the fight for abortion would continue in the state capitals and in Washington, and Judge Clarence Thomas, part of the majority on Friday, called on the court to overturn other Supreme Court rulings defending same-sex marriage, gay sex and contraceptive use. .
The only clinic in West Virginia performing abortions stopped after the decision on Friday.
The decision came more than a month after a stunning leak of a draft opinion by Judge Samuel Alito, which shows that the court is ready to take this important step.
This puts the court at odds with the majority of Americans who support the preservation of Roe, according to opinion polls.
Alito, in a final statement issued Friday, wrote that Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a 1992 decision confirming the right to abortion, were wrong on the days when the decision was made and should be overturned.
“Therefore, we believe that the Constitution does not give the right to abortion. Rowe and Casey must be abolished and the power to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives, “Alito wrote in an opinion that was very similar to the previous project.
The power to regulate abortions lies with the political branches, not the courts, Alito writes.
Alito was joined by Thomas and Judges Neil Gorsuch, Brett Cavanaugh and Amy Connie Barrett. The last three judges have been appointed by Trump. Thomas first voted to repeal Roe 30 years ago.
Four judges would leave Rowe and Casey in place.
The vote was 6-3 in support of the Mississippi law, but Chief Justice John Roberts did not join his conservative counterparts in repealing Rowe. He wrote that there was no need to overturn broad precedents to govern in favor of the Mississippi.
Judges Stephen Brier, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan – the court’s reduced liberal wing – disagreed.
“With grief – for this court, but more for the many millions of American women who have lost basic constitutional protection today – we oppose it,” they wrote, warning that opponents of abortion could now pursue a nationwide ban “from conception.” . and without exception for rape or incest. “
The decision is expected to disproportionately affect women from minorities who already face limited access to health care, according to statistics analyzed by the Associated Press.
Attorney General Merrick Garland said the Justice Department would “work tirelessly to protect and promote reproductive freedom.” He said in a statement that in addition to protecting providers and those seeking abortions in states where it is legal, “we are ready to work with other units of the federal government that seek to use their legitimate powers to protect and maintain access to reproductive care. ”
In particular, Garland said the Federal Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of mifepristone for medical abortions.
“States cannot ban Mifepristone based on disagreement with FDA expert judgment on its safety and efficacy,” Garland said.
More than 90% of abortions are performed in the first 13 weeks of pregnancy, and more than half are now performed with pills rather than surgery, according to data collected by the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.
The only abortion clinic in Mississippi, which is at the center of the case, continued to accept patients on Friday. Outside, the men used a megaphone to tell people at the clinic that they would burn in hell. Clinic attendants dressed in colorful vests used large stereo speakers to blow up protesters with Tom Petty’s song “I Won’t Back Down.”
Mississippi is one of 13 states, mainly in the South and Midwest, that already have book laws banning abortion if Rowe is repealed. Another half a dozen states have almost complete bans or bans after 6 weeks of pregnancy before many women find out they are pregnant.
In approximately half a dozen other states, the fight will be for dormant abortion bans that were passed before Roe’s decision in 1973, or new proposals to sharply limit the possibility of abortion, according to Gutmacher.
In Wisconsin, which has had an abortion ban since 1849 in the books, Planned Parenthood immediately stopped all planned abortions at its clinics in Madison and Milwaukee following a Supreme Court ruling.
The decision came amid opinion polls showing that a majority of Americans oppose Roe’s repeal and the transfer of the question of whether to allow abortion entirely in the United States. Surveys conducted by the Associated Press’s NORC Center for Public Affairs and others also consistently show that about 1 in 10 Americans want abortion to be illegal in all cases. The majority supports abortion being legal in all or most circumstances, but research shows that many also support restrictions, especially later in pregnancy.
The Biden administration and other abortion advocates have warned that a decision to overturn Rowe will also jeopardize other Supreme Court rulings in favor of gay rights and even potential contraception.
Liberal judges did the same in their disagreement: the majority “eliminates 50 years of constitutional law, which guarantees the freedom and equal status of women.” It violates a fundamental principle of the rule of law designed to promote permanence in the law. In doing so, he endangers other rights, from contraception to same-sex intimacy and marriage. Finally, it undermines the legitimacy of the Court. “
And Thomas, the court member most open to rejecting previous decisions, wrote a separate opinion urging his colleagues to bring to the table cases of the Supreme Court’s same-sex marriage, gay sex and even contraception.
But Alito says his analysis only applies to abortion. “Nothing in this opinion should be understood to call into question precedents that do not affect abortion,” he wrote.
Whatever the intentions of the person who leaked Alito’s draft opinion, the Conservatives were adamant about repealing Rowe and Casey.
He said Alito rejected arguments in favor of maintaining the two decisions, including that many generations of American women had relied in part on the right to abortion to gain economic and political power.
The change in the composition of the court was central to the country’s anti-abortion strategy, as dissidents firmly noted. “The court is reversing today for one and only one reason: because the composition of this court has changed,” the liberal judges wrote.
Mississippi and its allies made increasingly aggressive arguments as the case progressed, and two high-court abortion advocates retired or died. The state initially argued that its law could be upheld without overturning court abortion precedents.
Then-Gov. Phil Bryant signed the 15-week measure in March 2018, when Judges Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsberg were still members of the majority of five judges, who mainly defended abortion rights.
By the beginning of the summer, Kennedy was retiring, and a few months later he was replaced by Judge Brett Cavanaugh. Mississippi law was blocked in the lower federal courts.
But the state has always been directed to the nation’s highest court. He did not even request a hearing before a three-member panel of the 5th U.S. District Court of Appeal, which ultimately declared the law invalid in December 2019.
By early September 2020, the Supreme Court was ready to hear the state’s appeal.
The court scheduled the case for a private conference of judges on September 29th. But in the weeks that followed, Ginsberg died, and Barrett was quickly nominated and confirmed without a single Democrat vote.
The scene was ready, although it took the court another half year to agree to hear the case.
By the time Mississippi filed his main written argument in court over the summer, the meaning of his argument had changed and he was now calling for a complete rejection of Roe and Casey.
The first sign that the court may be receptive to the abolition of the constitutional right to abortion came in late summer, when judges split 5-4, allowing Texas to ban the procedure for about six weeks before some women even found out that they are pregnant. This dispute turned to the unique structure of the law, including its application by private citizens rather than civil servants, and how it can be challenged in court.
Roberts was among the dissidents.
Then in December, after hearing further arguments on whether to block Texas law, known as SB 8, the court again refused to do so, also by 5-4 votes. “The clear purpose and actual effect of SB 8 is to overturn the rulings of this court,” Roberts wrote in partial disagreement.
In their Senate hearings, Trump’s three high-ranking officials carefully circumvented questions about how they would vote in any case, including abortion.
But even when Democrats and proponents of abortion rights predicted that Cavanaugh and Gorsuch would vote to change abortion rights if confirmed, the two left at least one Republican senator with a different impression. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine predicts that Gorsuch and Cavanaugh will not support the cancellation of abortion cases, based on personal conversations she had with them when they were nominated for the Supreme Court.
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Associated Press writers Jessica Gresco, Alana Darkin Reacher in Boston, Emily Wagster Petus in Jackson, Mississippi and …
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