The court’s three liberal justices appeared certain to be in dissent. Until now, the court has allowed states to regulate but not ban abortion before the point of viability, around 24 weeks. Only Chief Justice John Roberts seemed prepared to take the smaller step of upholding the 15-week ban, in essence overturning the court’s ruling in Casey, while leaving in place the right to an abortion in Roe. Casey, which itself moved beyond Roe’s initial trimester framework for regulating abortion.Īt arguments in December, all six conservative justices signaled they would uphold the Mississippi law, and five asked questions suggesting they supported overturning the right to abortion nationwide, leaving the issue up to individual states. The current Supreme Court abortion case specifically concerns a Mississippi law that bans abortion after 15 weeks - before the “viability” standard set in the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Obergefell, moreover, relies on the Constitution's Equal Protection Clause as well as the right to privacy. It stands in contrast to abortion, which is usually "a response to unplanned circumstances," Collett said. Thomas School of Law and director of its Prolife Center.Ĭourts are usually loath to undo that kind of precedent. Obergefell is different from Roe in that hundreds of thousands of same-sex couples have relied on it to wed and created legal bonds, like shared property, inheritance rights and “settled expectations about the future,” said Teresa Collett, a professor at the University of St.