US Supreme Court poised to limit abortion rights

The US Supreme Court is poised to limit abortion rights if they decide to accept a Mississippi law that would ban abortion after the fifteenth week of pregnancy.

This Wednesday, December 1, the majority of the US Supreme Court voted in favor of putting new limits on abortion in the country, but it is not clear whether the limits would go as far as to abolish the current law, which has been in place since 1973.

The legal precedent that resulted in the legalisation of abortion throughout the United States was the Roe v. Wade case in 1973. This allows abortion up to the point when the foetus would be able to survive outside of the womb, usually around 24 or 24 weeks. The case was strongly criticised by pro-life groups. In the decades following the case, many states and policymakers have passed pro-life laws and have limited government funding for abortion. Just this year, according to the Susan B. Anthony List organisation, there have been almost 500 pro-life projects throughout the United States.

The result of the case will not be decided until 2022. It revolves around a Mississippi law that prohibits abortion from the 15th week of pregnancy.

“Today we are on the edge of what could be a new era in the history of the United States. An era in which the great moral questions of our time are decided once more by the people through their elected representatives instead of by unelected judges,” said former Vice President Mike Pence, who hopes the Roe v. Wade legislation will be overturned, at a recent event in Washington.

The judge at the head of the Court, John Roberts, believes that reducing the limit at which abortion is legal to 15 weeks, as proposed by Mississippi, is “not a very drastic difference” from the current situation.

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