The Supreme Court could hand down another major attack on Roe v. Wade any day now

Brnovich v. Isaacson could trigger a flood of decisions reinstating long-dead anti-abortion laws.

By Ian Millhiser
Jan 7, 2022

By all outward signs, Roe v. Wade is on its deathbed. In December, the Supreme Court effectively insulated a Texas law that bans abortions after the sixth week of pregnancy from judicial review. Then, at oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, a majority of the justices appeared eager to drastically roll back abortion rights — and perhaps even to overrule Roe explicitly. A decision in Dobbs is expected by late June.

That leaves the right to an abortion in limbo. Technically, decisions like Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), which weakened Roe somewhat but retained core protections for abortion, remain good law. And many state anti-abortion laws are currently blocked by court orders that rely on Roe and Casey.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/22868691/supreme-court-abortion-brnovich-isaacson-arizona-roe-wade

Today’s Supreme Court Case Makes It Clear: Amy Coney Barrett Will Decide the Future of Abortion Rights in the United States

That, to put it mildly, is not good news for the future of abortion rights

DECEMBER 1, 2021
By DAVID S. COHEN

The Supreme Court on Wednesday heard a Mississippi case that could overturn Roe v. Wade. After almost two hours of oral argument, it’s clear that the fate of nationwide legal abortion is now in the hands of Justice Amy Coney Barrett. That’s not good news for the future of abortion rights.

The case argued today involved a ban on abortion at 15 weeks of pregnancy. Roe and subsequent Supreme Court cases had been entirely clear that states could not ban abortion before “viability,” a medical term indicating when a fetus has developed enough that it could survive outside a woman on its own (though with extraordinary medical intervention). For most pregnancies, that’s about 23 or 24 weeks.

Continued: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/abortion-supreme-court-amy-coney-barrett-mississippi-1265450/

How the Supreme Court could overrule Roe v. Wade without overruling Roe v. Wade

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is an existential threat to Roe — even if the Court doesn’t use the words “Roe v. Wade is overruled.”

By Ian Millhiser
Nov 29, 2021

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which the Supreme Court will hear on Wednesday, is the single greatest threat to abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was handed down in 1973. It involves a Mississippi law that prohibits nearly all abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy, a law which violates the Supreme Court’s holding in Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992) that “a State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability.”

“Viability” refers to the moment when a fetus can live outside of the womb, which typically occurs around the 24th week of pregnancy. (It’s worth noting that, while Mississippi’s law is often described as a “15-week” ban, the law provides that the 15-week clock starts ticking on “the first day of the last menstrual period of the pregnant woman.” So, in practice, the law functions more like a 13-week abortion ban.)

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2021/11/29/22796446/supreme-court-roe-wade-abortion-dobbs-jackson-womens-health-organization-overrule

No, the US Isn’t an Extreme Outlier on Abortion

Sure, other countries restrict abortion earlier in pregnancy than the US. They also have broad social safety nets that support families.

By Susan Rinkunas
Nov 29, 2021

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The United States is one of just seven countries worldwide, alongside China and North Korea, that allow “elective” abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy. This line has been used on the Senate floor, in Trump administration policy statements, and dissents from court rulings to paint the US as extreme in terms of abortion leniency. (Two of the other countries on that list are Canada and the Netherlands, but Republican lawmakers oddly never mention those.)

The factoid was cited this summer in the Supreme Court brief from Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch to defend the state’s 15-week abortion ban. The law has never taken effect because it’s unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, but Fitch explicitly asked the high court to overturn Roe in the case it’s hearing on Wednesday.

Continued: https://jezebel.com/no-the-us-isn-t-an-extreme-outlier-on-abortion-1848131047

USA – Fetal Viability, Long an Abortion Dividing Line, Faces a Supreme Court Test

On Wednesday, the justices will hear the most important abortion case in decades, one that could undermine or overturn Roe v. Wade.

By Adam Liptak
Nov. 28, 2021

WASHINGTON — In 1973, in Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court drew a line. The Constitution, it said, did not allow states to ban abortions before the fetus could survive outside the womb.

On Wednesday, when the court hears the most important abortion case in a generation, a central question will be whether the court’s conservative majority is prepared to erase that line. The case concerns a Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks, long before fetal viability.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/28/us/politics/supreme-court-mississippi-abortion-law.html

USA – Supreme Court set to take up all-or-nothing abortion fight

By MARK SHERMAN
Nov 28, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — Both sides are telling the Supreme Court there’s no middle ground in Wednesday’s showdown over abortion. The justices can either reaffirm the constitutional right to an abortion or wipe it away altogether.

Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 ruling that declared a nationwide right to abortion, is facing its most serious challenge in 30 years in front of a court with a 6-3 conservative majority that has been remade by three appointees of President Donald Trump.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-us-supreme-court-voting-rights-samuel-alito-07ecdb3661032c4c6ececd4d07c70655

In Supreme Court abortion case, the past could be the future

November 23, 2021
By Lawrence Hurley

OXFORD, Miss., Nov 23 (Reuters) - Just months before she was set to start law school in the summer of 1973, Barbara Phillips was shocked to learn she was pregnant.

Then 24, she wanted an abortion. The U.S. Supreme Court had legalized abortion nationwide months earlier with its landmark Roe v. Wade ruling recognizing a woman's constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy. But abortions were not legally available at the time in Mississippi, where she lived in the small town of Port Gibson.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-supreme-court-case-past-could-be-future-abortion-2021-11-23/

USA – How anti-abortion advocates are pushing local bans, city by small city

Across Ohio, tactics pioneered in Texas are being deployed in disruptive city council meetings

Audra Jane Heidrichs
Tue 23 Nov 2021

In May of this year, six city council members in Lebanon, Ohio, a city located just north of Cincinnati, voted on an ordinance that would effectively outlaw abortion for the 21,000 people that call it home.

As in countless council meetings in small cities across the country where mask mandates, teaching about race in schools and access to reproductive healthcare have become politically charged in America’s current climate, the night unfolded in a series of near-Shakespearean acts.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/23/anti-abortion-local-bans-ohio

What Happens When It’s Too Late to Get an Abortion

Nov. 22, 2021
By Diana Greene Foster
New York Times

On Dec. 1, the Supreme Court will consider the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. If the court decides to uphold the Mississippi law — as it may well do — that would mean American abortion rights would no longer be protected up to the point of fetal viability, or about 24 weeks of pregnancy.

Replacing this viability standard, which has been in place since 1992, with some lower threshold is sometimes framed as a necessary compromise between people who oppose abortion rights and those who support them. The suggestion is that Americans should relinquish the right to abortion in the second trimester to preserve access in the first, which is when about 90 percent of abortions take place.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/22/opinion/abortion-supreme-court-women-law.html

How 3 lawsuits could potentially stop the Texas abortion ban

There are three major cases currently challenging the new Texas law, all taking up different arguments. Any one of them could reach the Supreme Court. Here’s how.

Jennifer Gerson, Reporter
October 1, 2021

Texas’ law effectively banning abortions after six weeks will get its first hearing in front of a judge since going into effect last month. A U.S. district judge in Austin will hear arguments in the federal government’s suit against Texas Friday, the earliest opportunity for a court order that could block Senate Bill 8 and prevent it from continuing to be enforced.

It’s the first in a salvo of challenges to SB 8. Last week, the ACLU, on behalf of the abortion provider Whole Woman’s Health, asked for an expedited hearing on their case. And 20 days after SB 8 went into effect, the first civil suit against an abortion provider was filed after the provider publicly said he knowingly violated the law.

Continued: https://19thnews.org/2021/10/how-3-lawsuits-could-stop-the-texas-abortion-ban/