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Supreme Court To Review Mississippi Abortion Ban

By: Nina Totenberg | NPR
Posted on: Monday, May 17, 2021

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WASHINGTON, D.C. (NPR) — With Roe v. Wade hanging by a thread, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to consider a major rollback of abortion rights.

The Supreme Court — [AP Photo | Jose Luis Magana]

It is the second time in weeks that the court’s new conservative majority has signaled a willingness to reconsider long-established legal doctrine, this time on abortion, and just weeks ago, on guns.

The court said Monday it would review next term whether all state laws that ban pre-viability abortions are unconstitutional. The court’s 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade declared that a woman has a constitutional right to terminate a pregnancy in the first six months, when the fetus is incapable of surviving outside the womb.

The test case is from Mississippi, which bans most abortions after 15 weeks, significantly before fetal viability. The lower courts blocked enforcement of the law, finding it in conflict with Roe v. Wade and subsequent abortion decisions.