The state of Mississippi has asked the US Supreme Court to repeal the federal right to abortion in the United States, in a court document filed Thursday, July 22. The Supreme Court had agreed in May to review a Mississippi law banning most abortions from the 15e week of pregnancy, even in the event of rape or incest.
It is within the framework of this procedure, on which the highest court in the country must examine in the fall for a decision in mid-2022, that the Attorney General of Mississippi, Lynn Fitch, estimated Thursday that the judgments establishing the right to abortion were “scandalously wrong”. “This court should overrule Roe and Casey” – the two decisions respectively taken in 1973 and 1992 – she wrote, judging that “the conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis”.
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Ms. Fitch’s request is “mind-boggling”immediately denounced Nancy Northup, the president of the association Center for reproductive rights, which defends the right to abortion. “Their goal is for the Supreme Court to take away our right to control our own bodies and our future –not just in Mississippi, but everywhere”she hammered in a press release.
A court with a conservative majority
The Supreme Court refuses in the vast majority of cases to examine the appeals challenging its judgment “Roe v. Wade”, by which she recognized in 1973 a constitutional right to abortion, specifying later that women might abort as long as the fetus is not “unsustainable”which corresponds to approximately 22 weeks of pregnancy.
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But she agreed to take up this law of the State of Mississippi, yet blocked by the courts at first instance and then on appeal, suggesting that she might influence her previous decisions.
The Court’s political balance swung sharply to the conservative side following the appointment of three judges during Donald Trump’s tenure, leaving only three out of nine progressive judges. According to experts, it is likely that the high court will not totally invalidate Roe v. Wade, but diminishes its scope by providing more and more leeway to states to prohibit voluntary terminations of pregnancy, which risks increasing territorial disparities in the country.
