Anti-abortion activists waved pink flags with “JESUS” emblazoned in white outside Mississippi’s only abortion clinic this morning even as state attorneys in Washington, D.C., urged the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart told the nation’s high court that Roe v. Wade and a follow-up case in 1992 that affirmed it, Casey v. Planned Parenthood, had “haunted” the nation. Mississippi wants the court to overturn Roe v. Wade and uphold a 2018 law it passed banning abortions after 15 weeks.
“Nowhere else does this court recognize the right to end a life,” Stewart told the justices.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor pointed out the political nature of the current case.
“The sponsors said we have new (U.S. Supreme Court) justices. The (Mississippi) Senate sponsor said we’re doing it because we had different new justices on the Supreme Court. … If people believe it’s all political, how will we survive? How will the court survive?”
She was referring to Mississippi State Sen. Joey Fillingane, a Sumrall Republican who was among the 15-week ban’s sponsors. In 2019, he told this reporter in a story for another publication that former President Donald Trump’s 2018 appointment of Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court meant that “now would be a good time to start testing the limits of Roe.”
“With a fifth conservative taking the seat of Justice Kennedy, who was considered a moderate on the court, I think a lot of people thought, finally, we have five conservative justices and so now would be a good time to start testing the limits of Roe,” Fillingane said at the time.
That was before the U.S. Senate confirmed Trump nominee Amy Coney Barrett just days before the 2020 election.
Watch the Mississippi Free Press for ongoing coverage of the effort to overturn Roe v. Wade from Mississippi. See our full abortion-related coverage here.