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The United States Supreme Court on Wednesday heard oral arguments in what will likely become a landmark abortion rights case.
The court’s conservative justices, who have a 6-3 majority, gave hints that they are considering weakening or even overturning Roe v. Wade, a 48-year-old decision that held that women have a constitutional right to abort a pregnancy.
In the case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the court is being asked to decide whether a Mississippi state law that bans most abortions after the 15th week of pregnancy is constitutional. Two lower federal courts held it is not.
The law conflicts with Roe v. Wade, the court’s ruling in 1973 that women have a right to an abortion based on an inferred constitutional right to privacy. It also conflicts with the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, in which the court upheld the central principle of Roe but clarified that abortion should generally be available up to the point at which a fetus is “viable,” or able to survive outside the womb.
The stakes are high. If the court overturns Roe, 21 states are poised to restrict or ban abortion immediately. Some have laws that were on the books before Roe passed and would come back into effect. Others have passed “trigger” laws that automatically will come into force if the precedent is overturned. Additionally, lawmakers in at least five other states have indicated an interest in restricting abortion.
“It’s possible that they, in this decision, say Roe was decided incorrectly, therefore, Casey was decided incorrectly,” Laurie Sobel, associate director of women’s health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation said. If so, she said, “it’s up to the states. There’s no federal constitutional protection for abortion, and so states are allowed to do whatever they want with it.”
Alexis McGill Johnson, president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, expressed concern for abortion rights after the court session.
“It was alarming, though not surprising, that the majority of the Supreme Court justices appeared prepared to allow politicians to control what we can do with our bodies,” McGill Johnson said.
As the court heard arguments, hundreds of demonstrators gathered outside carrying signs reading “Abortion Is Murder” or—on the other side—“Abortion Is Health Care.”
Public opinion polls have found most Americans believe abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
The court will announce its decision by June, the end of the current session. That means abortion access is poised to become an election issue, just as campaigns are ramping up for the November midterms.
For a deeper analysis of Wednesday’s oral arguments, we recommend this piece by Shefali Luthra, a health reporter at The 19th.
