Will Supreme Court Overturn Roe V. Wade? 5 Things To Know

ACROSS AMERICA — The right of women in all 50 states to end their pregnancies hangs in the balance after the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments on a Mississippi case Wednesday that could ultimately overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that legalized abortion.

The case at issue — Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Association — challenges a Mississippi law that bans abortions in most cases after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The law undercuts the standard set by Roe that guarantees women access to the procedure up until the fetus is viable outside her womb, typically around 23 or 24 weeks after conception, and longer in cases where the woman’s life or health is in jeopardy.

• RELATED: Supreme Court Signals It Could OK New Abortion Limits, Toss Roe

The 6-3 conservative majority on the court signaled that it may be willing to impose new restrictions on abortion. Less clear is whether a majority of justices will take the prescriptive step Mississippi’s lawyers say is necessary to enforce its ban — striking down or gutting Roe and another case that affirmed it.

Here are five things to know:

1. How Did The Case Get To The Supreme Court?

Wednesday was a day abortion foes have long been waiting for. In anticipation of it, conservative-leaning states have made numerous attempts with heartbeat legislation intended to make abortion difficult or nearly impossible to obtain, all aiming to become the state whose law would dismantle Roe.

Mississippi was among them, passing a law in 2018 to ban abortions after 15 weeks, almost two months before the viability standard established in Roe. Abortion rights groups immediately challenged the law as unconstitutional, and federal courts agreed.

“The record is clear: States may not ban abortions prior to viability” of the fetus, a federal judge ruled in November 2018, describing “the Mississippi Legislature’s professed interest in ‘women’s health’ as “pure gaslighting.”

The state unsuccessfully appealed the U.S. District Court ruling to the conservative 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which said the nation’s high court had continually affirmed the legality of abortion before viability and that lower courts cannot supersede its precedent.

“States may regulate abortion procedures prior to viability so long as they do not impose an undue burden on the woman’s right,” Judge Patrick Higginbotham wrote, “but they may not ban abortions.”

The law never took effect as the case wended through federal courts until finally reaching the Supreme Court.

2. How Do Roe And Casey Come Into Play?

In Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court said an unwanted pregnancy could lead a woman to “a distressful life and future.” In the 1992 case, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, the court upheld Roe, finding that abortion rights were necessary for “women to participate equally in the economic and social life of the nation.”

Lawyers for the state of Mississippi proposed an array of mechanisms to uphold the 15-week abortion ban but said the court ultimately should overturn the “egregiously wrong” Roe and Casey rulings.

If the court “does not impose a substantial obstacle to ‘a significant number of women’ seeking abortions,” the state argued, the justices should reinterpret the “undue burden” standard established in Roe and give the state the authority to “prohibit elective abortions before viability” of the fetus.

3. Does Women's Progress Make Abortion Obsolete?

Also among the state’s arguments is that abortion is no longer necessary because progress has made it easier for women to balance work and family.

“In these last 50 years,” Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch said in a statement, “women have carved out their own ways to achieving a better balance for success in their professional and personal lives.”

The “march of progress has left Roe and Casey behind,” and the rulings in those cases shackle states “to a view of the facts that is decades out of date,” the state argued in a brief.

“Today, adoption is accessible and on a wide scale women attain both professional success and a rich family life, contraceptives are more available and effective, and scientific advances show that an unborn child has taken on the human form and features months before viability,” the state argued. “States should be able to act on those developments.”

4. ‘A Request … To Scuttle A Half-Century Of Precedent’

The Center for Reproductive Rights, which challenged the law with the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, argues that although the Constitution does not address pregnancy, courts have upheld the decision in Roe, which was tied to privacy and personal autonomy.

“Every version of the State’s argument amounts to the same thing: a request that the Court scuttle a half-century of precedent and invite states to ban abortion entirely,” the plaintiffs’ brief states.

In oral arguments, Center for Reproductive Rights Senior Director Julie Rikelman said the state’s ban on abortion two months before a fetus is viable outside the womb is “flatly unconstitutional under decades of precedent.”

“Two generations have now relied on this right, and 1 out of every 4 women makes a decision to end a pregnancy,” Rikelman said.

The plaintiffs also argued that denying women access to abortion is detrimental to their physical and emotional health.

5. Other States Are Watching

The decision, expected to be handed down next summer, could have ramifications beyond Mississippi. If the court strikes down Roe, 26 states are certain or likely to ban abortion, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a research group that supports abortion rights.

By the time the court heard oral arguments in the Mississippi case, there were:

• Nine states with abortion bans on the books that predate the Roe v. Wade ruling.
• Twelve states with “trigger bans” that take effect if Roe is overturned.
• Five states with a near-total ban on abortions.
• One state, Texas, with a six-week abortion ban that is in effect.
• Eleven states with a six-week abortion ban on the books that are paused due to court challenges.
• One state with an eight-week abortion ban that is not in effect.
• Four states whose constitutions specifically bar access to an abortion.

Multiple bans are in place in some states, according to the Guttmacher Institute.