“This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy.” In a footnote, Alito included a key passage from Justice Harry Blackmun’s 7-2 decision in Roe describing the constitutional underpinnings of the abortion right: “Roe … was remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text”Ĭonservatives have long derided Roe as untethered from the Constitution - or as Alito put it in his draft opinion, “remarkably loose in its treatment of the constitutional text.”Įscaped Alabama inmate, wanted officer may be in Ford SUV, U.S. Among those, 13 states have trigger laws already in place, designed to take effect automatically or by quick state action if Roe no longer applies. The 2018 Mississippi law at issue in the case, which has been paused during litigation, is just one of hundreds of abortion measures that state legislatures passed in recent years.Īccording to abortion rights advocacy group Guttmacher Institute, 22 states would be certain to attempt to ban abortion as quickly as possible. “And there’ll be different answers in Mississippi than New York, different answers in Alabama than California, because they’re two different interests at stake and the people in those states might value those interests somewhat differently.” “Why should this court be the arbiter rather than Congress, the state legislatures, state supreme courts, the people, being able to resolve this?” Kavanaugh asked an attorney for the Biden administration during arguments.
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He, along with fellow Trump nominees Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, plus Justice Clarence Thomas, formed a majority with Alito, according to reports. Justice Brett Kavanaugh had pursued a similar line of questioning during oral argument in December. Many Republican officials had urged the court to adopt this very approach in the Mississippi dispute, with a dozen GOP governors in an amicus brief calling on the court to use the case to restore state control over the procedure.Īlito’s opinion delivered on that request, stating: “It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people’s elected representatives.”
The practical effect of Alito’s opinion would be to hand full authority to states to regulate abortion.
“We thus return the power to … the people and their elected representatives” The ruling stems from a dispute over Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, which directly conflicts with Roe’s prohibition on states banning abortion prior to fetal viability, around 23 weeks. Here are five key lines from Alito’s 67-page draft opinion. VIDEO: Escaped inmate, wanted officer seen on surveillance tape