As predicted months ago, Mississippi is now the epicenter of America’s divisive, bitter abortion rights debate.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dec. 1, 2021, in the Mississippi case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization – Mississippi’s last remaining abortion provider. “Dobbs” is State Health Officer Thomas Dobbs, familiar to Mississippians as the face of the Covid-19 pandemic’s management and named in the case simply by virtue of his job.
The draft opinion from Justice Samuel Alito leaked to the Politico website last week was written as the high court’s draft ruling in Dobbs.
The leaked draft high court opinion set off a national firestorm of protests from both sides of the issue. While Chief Justice John Roberts pledged an investigation and declared that the leaked Alito draft decision was not “final,” the revelation of the apparent decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will have relatively immediate legal, political, medical, and moral consequences across the nation.
The leaked document seems to communicate a willingness of at least a five-member majority of the court to back away from the longtime legal precedents in the Roe and Planned Parenthood cases that pro-choice forces believe established a constitutional right to abortion. Such a ruling in the Dobbs case would dramatically shift the power to recognize and regulate abortion back to state legislatures.
If Alito’s leaked opinion indeed becomes the high court’s ultimate ruling in Dobbs, the impact for much of the country will be rather abrupt.
Some 13 states with existing “trigger” laws – including Arkansas, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Wyoming, and Utah – would see virtually immediate abortion bans, according to legal analysts from pro-abortion advocacy groups. About 25 states could ban or significantly limit abortions in less than a year.
State legislation that sought to limit abortion based on fetal viability thrust Mississippi into the spotlight. It is a factor in many state legislatures seeking to ban or restrict abortions and circumvent Roe – not just in Mississippi.
What is at stake, in this case, are the longtime judicial precedent abortion cases Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. Why? Because the Mississippi abortion rights case is the first such case before the Supreme Court since the 2020 death of liberal Associate Justice Ruth Bade Ginsburg.
Roe v. Wade is the landmark 1973 case out of Texas that has for nearly a half-century legalized abortion by holding that the Constitution protects a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion. Planned Parenthood v. Casey is the 1992 landmark case out of Pennsylvania that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade and set a test on state abortion laws of “undue burden” – defined as a “substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability.”
The Dobbs case directly challenges both the Roe and Planned Parenthood precedents to defend a 2018 Mississippi law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The high court was asked by Mississippi in the brief before the court: “Whether all pre-viability prohibitions on elective abortions are unconstitutional.”
After passage by the Mississippi Legislature, the 2018 state law was blocked by the U.S. District Court and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which led on appeal to Supreme Court review.
While the secondary debate over who leaked the opinion and to what end will dominate the national news for the near future, the policy debate centers clearly on whether the leaked judicial decision stands. In the interim, expect a scramble by federal and state lawmakers seeking to react to the Alito opinion before it becomes precedent – if and when it does.
The leaked Alito decision suggests that the majority of the current high court believes their predecessors, in a sense, “legislated from the bench” in setting first the Roe and later the Planned Parenthood precedents enabling the perception of a true constitutional right to abortion. To say the least, that is a seismic shift in American jurisprudence.
Now we will witness a dizzying political, legal, and social reaction to the leaked decision, which could well undermine the future of the nation’s highest court as we now know it in a bitterly divided nation.
Sid Salter is a syndicated columnist. Contact him at sidsalter@sidsalter.com
23 comments:
Leave it to Mississippi to bring a case to set the country back a century.
?? Pretty much been the epicenter for years now. WTF is this guy talking about ? I am suspect this leak actually came from an aid for one of the justices to begin with. I am suspect of just about anyone with power in this country. Listen to your gut folks....something stinks and WE will be the ones on the short end of the stick if we don't act.
Killing the innocent unborn is big business, funded by the taxpayers. Yes, I know that the feds can't give them grants/free month for the killing side of their disgusting business, but in reality funds are co-mingled (except on paper).
Then the abortion mills feed the PACs of the left, like a self-licking ice cream cone.
Roe, an unconstitutional and radical action beyond the scope of SCOTUS, was the knife that split the nation, not this leaked memo.
High time this bloody nazi procedure, worthy of Mengele, was decided by the People, state by state.
The "trigger" will not just affect incest victims.
Those in the Pro-Life movement who believe life " begins at conception" will see that birth control devices that prevent the fertilized egg from attaching to the uterus and drugs that do the same are banned.
So, if your daughter is raped and brutalized by a person who doesn't look like you, they will NOT be given the drug to stop pregnancy.
IUD's for women who cannot tolerate birth control pills will be banned and an argument will ensue as to whether or not birth control pills prevent ovulation or it's a " baby" the moment the sperm enters the egg.
Be careful what you wish for pro-life guys that aren't too ugly or obnoxious to " get lucky",with DNA, you will easily be identified " as daddy" and on the hook for child support.
P.S. Women, using herbs have aborted pregnancies since Medieval times and with certainty in written history in our days as a colony. That'd be illegal too( it was also dangerous as poisonous plants are involved and too much or too little was disastrous.
Of course, ignorance is far more dangerous!
The abortionists love the fact that the case originated in Mississippi of all places. That way they can sell the law as backwards and ignorant to the rest of the country and say, "look where it comes from". And many, many, of the simple minded "progressive" generation will accept that observation especially when they see Tater Reeves trying to explain on national news.
10:48
Among those seeking an abortionist to kill their unborn baby, vast majority do so out of concern for economics or lifestyle convenience: among unwanted pregnancies, incest and rape are extremely rare.
In the typical unwanted pregnancy arising from casual sex, I agree the father has responsibility also. In ideal situations, he can financially support the pregnancy to term, when the baby can be adopted.
10:48 : Unused FREE birth control is why they need abortion for casuals in the first dang place. Hey ? You rekon Tater gone take rubbers away as well ? Lord, no one is even considering taking birth control products and making them illegal.No one that matters . Hell, Big Pharma would never allow to begin with...so there is that.
Look into the eyes of those protesting for abortion on demand thru the actual live birth. Those demon freaks are totally without any compassion for life. I am proud of Mississippi, my adopted state, for standing in the gap and defending the unborn. Doing away with Roe will not ban abortion in the USA and Mississippi will not be the only state to impose limitations. "Next the ULTRA-MAGA NUTS will be coming after birth control, inter-racial relationships, gay marriage and the grooming of elementary school kids". The next frontier?
Ah, yes, Mississippi, with the highest infant mortality rate in the country, is truly the bastion for the unborn. I'm done being lectured by hypocrites who don't give a damn about children outside the womb. Pro-life is inaccurate...pro-birth is a more appropriate term.
In the words of the great George Carlin: "Pre-birth? You're good. Preschool? You're f--ked."
Krusatyr @9:56, the National Socialists made abortion illegal after the Weimar Republic collapsed. If memory serves, the doctor was, if found guilty of performing an abortion, liable to be executed. Just sayin'.
I would like to read about that 5/11@1:29. Please, post a link.
"Now we will witness a dizzying political, legal, and social reaction to the leaked decision, which could well undermine the future of the nation’s highest court as we now know it in a bitterly divided nation."
That statement by Sid is quite a leap. The only way this "leaked decision" will undermine the future of the Supreme Court is if the Supreme Court allows itself to be undermined. READ THE CONSTITUTION SID! The Judicial Branch is one of three branches of government. The Supreme Court and its authority will live on well beyond this case.
Where poll after poll says the nation isn't divided Sid is in the usage of illegal alien labor by the farming industry.
mr salter, mississippi , in case you didn't know, is always at ''the center of a debate''.
problems that its always the wrong debate........always some BS about abortion, unwed mothers, school prayer, free speech, civil rights, sex laws, and all the other crap you media personalities obsess over.
wake me up when this state ends up at the center of the debate about economic development, insurance reform, job creation or just anything that could pull this place of of being the 3nd world backwater that it is.
somehow i think im going to get a long nap.
@1:08 Well said, unfortunately.
@1:29pm
Thanks for admonition. I was referencing Mengele's gruesome, inhuman experiments as comparable to today's abortionists who butcher fetuses and sell the parts.
@1:08pm
Most opponents of abortion I have known are themselves parents o
f children whom they have nourished and loved, even the "⅔unplanned" ones who were economically inconvenient.
Abortion is a deadly tool of the Left to attack families, like g.marriage, gender confusion and grooming children in public schools.
This particular statute puts Mississippi right up there with all wacko right wing governments
in the European Union, like France, Germany, etc. LOL.
Sometimes on the way to the county dump I pass those places along the way near the "No Dumping" sign and see that somebody else has thrown out a new load of garbage.
That's our Sid; every week he drives by and adds a little to the pile.
This is just a trojan horse. The state's rights brain trust is just getting started.
11:48 am You seem to get your stats from non-academic sites.
And, you overlook that " economic status" includes single/divorced mothers struggling to provide minimum care for the children they already have.
You also assume that every baby available for adoption gets adopted. Sadly, non-white babies, babies and babies with medical problems end up in foster care. You also don't know that the putative father has to agree to adoption and often in the cases of rape and domestic abuse, he will not. IF the child can be freed for adoption, by then ,they are too " old" to be in " demand".
Have you bothered to find out how many children in this State, much less, this Nation are in foster care or how that turns out?
Of course, you haven't noticed that the "demand" for adoption is down as infertile couples have the alternative of artificial insemination of viable fertilized eggs. Of course, this alternative to have a biological child is next on the rabid Pro-Lifer "hit list".
Do you know that one gets paid for being a foster parent and that few of these foster homes are in "good" school districts or stable neighborhoods? Do you have any idea how many foster children link up with gangs at school or runaway?
These " aren't these adoptive families wonderful ?" feel good news stories are the rare exception NOT the reality!
Even on TV, there are far more horror stories than " feel good" ones but you avoid them. Try the crime story channels and info the ones where children died or were tortured after " adoption" or " in foster care" or in supposedly " Christian group home care".
And, Lord knows YOU don't know that when a pregnant woman's " water breaks" in the first trimester ( do you know what that even means?") that a fetal heart beat continues for so long that the woman gets septis and dies and the fetus will always die as it can't develop life sustaining organs?
YOU want to think these examples are small. Rather than rely on what those seeking abortions want to divulge, perhaps, you should look at how our death rate during pregnancy has changed!
Your ignorance is appalling. Our National ignorance of sexual realities is appalling.
11:48 : Get your times right before writing books.
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