Mississippi Urges Supreme Court on Abortion: ‘Return the Matter to the People’

On December 1, 2021, the state of Mississippi will argue to the U.S. Supreme Court that it should revisit and overrule Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

The case before the court, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, involves Mississippi’s law, the Gestational Age Act, which prohibits abortions after 15 weeks’ gestation.

Under the Supreme Court’s precedents, states are not permitted to impose an age limit on abortion before a baby is viable outside of the womb, which generally occurs around 24 weeks gestation.

Roe and Casey combine to make up much of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence on abortion, after the court first legalized abortion nationwide in Roe in 1973.

Of course, the U.S. Constitution does not mention the word “abortion,” which means the Supreme Court never should have inserted itself and gotten involved in the issue.

Under the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

And this is the exact point that the state of Mississippi makes in its newly filed reply brief at the Supreme Court.

“Respondents contend that there is no sound alternative approach to judicial review of abortion laws other than the one imposed by Roe and Casey [citation omitted],” the brief argues. “But there is a sound alternative: return the matter to the people.”

It goes on: “[The Judiciary] cannot produce an enduring compromise. But the people can. When this Court returns this issue to the people, the people can debate, adapt, and find workable solutions. It will be hard for the people too, but under the Constitution the task is theirs—and the Court should return it to them now.”

The brief concludes: “This Court should overrule Roe and Casey, uphold the Act, and reverse the judgment below.”

We can all be praying that at least five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court agree to do exactly that.

The case is Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.

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