WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s new conservative majority today will weigh the fate of a famous liberal precedent: the Roe vs. Wade decision and the right of pregnant women to choose abortion.
Lawyers for Mississippi will defend a law that bans abortions after 15 weeks, and they will urge the court to go further and overrule the right to abortion set in 1973.
The nine justices and the attorneys will gather in a nearly empty courtroom, but the audio will be livestreamed on the court’s website beginning at 10 a.m. Eastern.
By midday the court will also post a transcript of the arguments in the case of Dobbs vs. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.
Here’s what to listen for during the argument:
Do justices focus on the 15-week limit or on the validity of Roe itself?
The biggest question is whether five conservative justices are ready to overturn the right to abortion now and boldly declare the Constitution offers no such protection to women.
Last year, when Mississippi filed its appeal petition, its lawyers asked the court to rule on whether the state could forbid abortions after 15 weeks. Even if upheld, this limit would not affect 95% of abortions.
But once the court voted to hear the appeal, the state changed course and called on the court to strike down Roe vs. Wade. Do any of the justices on the right sound troubled by the state’s bait-and-switch tactics? Or do some take the opportunity to question whether the 1973 ruling should be overturned?
Does Justice Barrett ask about the role of precedent?
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, the newest to the bench, could decide how far and how fast the court goes to restrict abortion. She is a former clerk to Justice Antonin Scalia, a fierce critic of Roe vs. Wade.
As a law professor at Notre Dame, she wrote often about precedent and argued for overturning past court rulings that were not based on a correct reading of the Constitution.
If she asks about precedent, it may signal she has already concluded Roe vs. Wade was wrongly decided and should be overruled.
In her first year, however, Barrett avoided broad constitutional rulings when cases could be decided narrowly. If she continues that pattern, she could focus on the justification for a 15-week limit.
Does Justice Kavanaugh focus on a narrow ruling?
