US Supreme Court To limit Abortion Rights?

The US Supreme Court might consider opting for a major rollback in abortion rights.

The court on Monday decided to hear the case involving a Mississippi law that prohibits abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. This will pose a challenge to the landmark Roe v Wade abortion rights ruling.

The court will commence the hearing for the case in October this year, and a ruling can be expected by 2022. The hearing will be presided over by a more conservative court with three justices appointed by former US President Donald Trump. Justice Amy Coney Barrett is one of them.

This abortion rights case is about a Mississippi abortion law passed in 2018 which prohibits abortions beyond a period of 15 weeks, with limited exceptions. This was then blocked by the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. According to the existing Supreme Court rulings, states may not ban abortions that occur before fetal viability, generally around 22 weeks or later.

Mississippi is now asking the justices to re-examine the "viability" standard. It argued that this has prevented states from defending maternal health in a proper manner.

"It is well past time for the Court to revisit the wisdom of the viability bright-line rule," Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch wrote in a brief filed with the justices.

"Alarm bells are ringing loudly about the threat to reproductive rights. The Supreme Court just agreed to review an abortion ban that unquestionably violates nearly 50 years of Supreme Court precedent and is a test case to overturn Roe v. Wade," said Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which is among those challenging the law.

Justices appointed by Trump had ruled in favour of limiting abortion rights

This comes after a June 2020 ruling in which, the court ruled in favour of Louisiana's abortion restrictions. This happened when Trump appointed Brett Kavanaugh in 2018 and Neil Gorsuch in 2017 as justices. Moreover, Trump had promised to challenge the Roe v. Wade ruling during his 2016 presidential campaign.

As for the Mississippi case, it has been pending in the court since June last year. No justices had taken the initiative to hear the case, and that was around the time when Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, a strong supporter of abortion rights passed away. She was then subsequently replaced by Amy Coney Barrett.