Advertisement
Trending

GOP States Prepare For New Laws When Roe v Wade Likely Struck Down

Advertisement

OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Virginia Republican Attorney General Jason Miyares has led the charge in calling on the U.S. Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade.

Under the state’s previously Democratic-led administration, Virginia joined 21 other states in urging the justices to invalidate Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban and reaffirm the core holding of the court’s 1973 decision in Roe.

Miyares has overruled that and is arguing in favor of giving states the power to enact stricter anti-abortion laws.

“The [new] Attorney General has reconsidered Virginia’s position in this case,” Miyares told the justices in a letter. “Virginia is now of the view that the Constitution is silent on the question of abortion, and that it is therefore up to the people in the several states to determine the legal status and regulatory treatment of abortion.”

Miyares said Virginia will be aligning with 19 Republican attorneys general and a dozen red-state governors across the country in calling for states to control abortion laws.

A majority of Supreme Court justices remain in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade after a draft of the majority opinion was written in February and leaked earlier this month.

Advertisement

Sources told The Washington Post that at least 5 justices, a majority on the court, have not changed their votes.

“Three conservatives close to the court” told WaPo that “the majority of five justices to strike Roe remains intact,” a question that has stirred those on both sides of the debate that has erupted around the future of abortion law in the U.S. in the wake of the leaked draft.

“The leaked draft opinion is dated in February and is almost surely obsolete now, as justices have had time to offer dissents and revisions. But as of last week, the majority of five justices to strike Roe remains intact, according to three conservatives close to the court who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter,” the WaPo report stated.

“A person close to the most conservative members of the court said Roberts told his fellow jurists in a private conference in early December that he planned to uphold the state law and write an opinion that left Roe and Casey in place for now. But the other conservatives were more interested in an opinion that overturned the precedents, the person said. A spokeswoman for the court declined to comment, and messages extended to justices were unreturned,” the report added.

It’s assumed that Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett voted in favor of overturning Roe v Wade.

The court’s three liberals — Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan — are presumed to have voted against overturning it.

It’s not clear how Roberts voted.

A draft majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito was leaked to Politico last week it set off a firestorm on social media.

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts called the leak of a draft opinion “absolutely appalling” and announced an investigation to find the leaker.

Advertisement

“The draft opinion is a full-throated, unflinching repudiation of the 1973 decision which guaranteed federal constitutional protections of abortion rights and a subsequent 1992 decision – Planned Parenthood v. Casey – that largely maintained the right,” Politico reported.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Alito writes.

“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” he writes in the document, labeled as the “Opinion of the Court.”

Alito adds: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”

Test your skills with this Quiz!

“We, therefore, hold the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion. Roe and Casey must be overruled, and the authority to regulate abortion must be returned to the people and their elected representatives,” Alito writes in the document, labeled the “Opinion of the Court.”

Last month, Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley argued that Roe v. Wade is the greatest injustice of our lifetime and that the Supreme Court has an opportunity to correct it.

Hawley explained, “It would mean the reaching of a landmark goal that I mean, frankly, I have to say just personally, that Roe is one of the reasons that the major reason that I went into politics, and I think that’s true for many, many other people. That’s one of the major reasons I was interested in the law. And this is the greatest injustice of our lifetime.”

Hawley said, “I just have to say that someone who believes that that row is one of the worst decisions ever handed down by the Supreme Court, I think it would be a monumental moral landmark and reverse a great injustice.”

Advertisement