Although it is not the official decision, the leak of the draft of a majority decision of the Supreme Court of the United States has already been seen as the final word of the final instance of the American Judiciary: after almost 50 years, the federal jurisprudence on abortion in the country will be overturned and responsibility for legislating on the matter will return to the states.
This Tuesday (3), anti-abortion groups celebrated the news published by the website Politico the day before, that five of the nine judges have already decided to overturn the decision in the case Roe v. Wade in 1973, which authorized abortion in the country under certain circumstances, while progressives lamented.
President Joe Biden said his administration would consider “options” to repeal the case law, while California Governor Gavin Newsom said he would propose an amendment to make abortion a part of the state’s Constitution.
On the other hand, Tate Reeves, the Republican governor of Mississippi, was among those who celebrated the Supreme Court’s decision.
“Everyone is outraged by the alleged leak in the Mississippi abortion case. Let’s think bigger. For decades, the United States has been exceptionally radical in the West. Our abortion laws resemble those of China and North Korea. Please pray for wisdom and courage for the Supreme Court. Countless lives can be saved!” he wrote on Twitter.
If the overthrow of Roe v. Wade is confirmed (the official decision is due within two months), Reeves’ state will have been the starting point for this change: the current discussion in the Supreme Court began when the Women’s Health Organization filed a lawsuit in a lower federal court to question a law passed in Mississippi in 2018 (when Reeves was not yet governor) that prohibits abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, except in situations to save life and preserve the mother’s physical health or serious fetal abnormality.
Convictions of Gazeta do Povo: Defense of life from conception
In response, the state of Mississippi appealed to the Supreme Court in the second half of 2020, asking judges to rule on whether all bans on pre-viability abortions in the country are unconstitutional.
In the cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the Supreme Court ruled that US states cannot prohibit abortion before so-called viability – the minimum period of gestation for a fetus to survive outside the uterus, now estimated at about 24 weeks.
But in recent years, Republican-run states have passed laws that set shorter deadlines, such as the Texas Heartbeat Act, which stipulated last year that abortions are prohibited once fetal cardiac activity can be detected — which usually occurs around the sixth week of pregnancy.
A matter challenged by the Biden administration in the Supreme Court (which kept the rule in force), the Texan law inspired similar legislation in other US states, such as one recently passed in Oklahoma. On Tuesday, when signing the law, Republican Governor Kevin Stitt said he wants “Oklahoma to be the most pro-life state in the country.”
If confirmed, the overturning of jurisprudence in Roe v. Wade would cause 26 of the 50 US states to restrict or attempt to restrict abortion immediately, according to a survey by the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports the procedure.
According to the study, these restrictions would be enforced in several ways: pre-Roe vs. Wade, that is, anti-abortion laws enacted before 1973 and never repealed; “trigger” bans, with laws designed to be “triggered” and take effect automatically or by quick state action if 49-year-old case law is overturned; near-total ban with laws enacted after the Roe case, several currently blocked by court order; abortion bans after six or eight weeks of pregnancy; and amendments to the state constitution to prohibit abortion.
“Most Americans support abortion restrictions that Roe [vs. Wade] doesn’t allow it,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of the anti-abortion activist group Susan B. Anthony List, said Tuesday in an interview with MSNBC. “Anyone who supports abortion to the end and wants taxpayers to pay for it is not a viable candidate. And I think Democrats are going to start seeing that at the polls.”
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