Reeves, Fitch speak out on Roe v. Wade leaked opinion
(The Center Square) – In the wake of the leaked draft of a U.S. Supreme Court decision on overturning Roe v. Wade, Mississippi’s governor and attorney general spoke out on Tuesday.
Late Monday, Politico reported it had obtained a draft of the ruling in the Mississippi case, Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The draft was written by Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito and, if adopted by the nation’s highest court, could potentially overturn Roe v. Wade. The court is expected to announce its decision this summer.
Roe v. Wade is the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established a constitutional right for abortion in the United States.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch, who argued the state’s case in front of the Supreme Court in November and December 2021, issued a statement Tuesday on the leaked draft.
“We will let the Supreme Court speak for itself and wait for the Court’s official opinion,” Fitch said in a statement obtained by The Center Square.
Republican Gov. Tate Reeves took to Facebook on Tuesday morning voicing his concerns regarding the leaked document.
“Everyone is rightly outraged over the alleged leak in the Mississippi abortion case,” Reeves wrote on his social media page. “Let’s think bigger. For decades, America has been uniquely radical in the West.
“Our abortion laws look more like China and North Korea. Please pray for wisdom and courage for Supreme Court justices. Countless lives can be saved!”
The Guttmacher Institute said that if Roe v. Wade is overturned. it could create a clear path for states to enforce, or create, abortion laws.
“Changes to the makeup of the U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 raise the possibility that Roe v. Wade could be severely undermined – or even overturned – essentially leaving the legality of abortion to individual states,” the organization wrote in its analysis of state abortion laws. “A reversal of Roe could establish a legal path for states’ pre-1973 abortion bans, as well as currently unenforced post-1973 bans, to take effect.”
In the case in Mississippi, Alito wrote that the state is asking the court to “uphold the constitutionality of a law that generally prohibits abortion after the fifteenth week of pregnancy – several weeks before the point at which a fetus is now regarded as ‘viable’ outside the womb.”
The state argued, according to the leaked opinion, that Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa v. Casey in 1992, should be reconsidered and asked the court to overrule Roe and Casey to allow each state to “regulate abortion as its citizens wish.”
Disclaimer: This content is distributed by The Center Square
