Fifty years is enough

Today, amid the formality of oral arguments, for the first time in 30 years the Supreme Court will consider whether to overrule Roe v. Wade. The case could not be more significant. The Supreme Court finally has the opportunity to return abortion policy to the states, allowing them to protect unborn children when they need it most.

Fifty years under Roe is enough. Under the Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence, states such as Mississippi are unable to protect unborn children until viability—the developmental point (around 22 weeks) at which they can survive outside the womb. Roe results in the death of over 2,360 children in America every single day. And because Roe was declared by the Court to be a constitutional decision, there is absolutely nothing the political branches (or anyone else) can do about it: Late-term abortions will remain legal unless and until the core holding of Roe is overruled.

Take the Mississippi law at issue in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act is actually a very modest restriction on abortion. It comes into effect only at fifteen weeks—leaving a pregnant woman months to obtain an abortion. It contains exceptions for the life and health of the mother. It applies at a time when the most common abortion procedure is dilation and evacuation, a cruel procedure in which the unborn child is crushed and torn apart. It protects the life of an unborn child who, at fifteen weeks, can hear her mother’s heartbeat, move and stretch, open and close her fingers, smile, and hiccup. The child has fully taken on the human form. And emerging scientific evidence suggests that she can likely feel pain as early as twelve weeks—months before viability….(Excerpts from World)