-Do you want the court, including the justices
that you will name, to overturn Roe v. Wade,
which includes, in fact, states a woman's right to abortion?
-Well, if that would happen, because I am pro-life
and I will be appointing pro-life judges,
I would think that that will go back to the individual states.
-A Mississippi law banning
almost all abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy
is heading to the Supreme Court.
The law has been blocked by a federal district judge
in a fifth circuit court of appeals
for contradicting the precedence set by Roe versus Wade
and Planned Parenthood versus Casey,
which was the goal for many anti-abortion activists.
-The Mississippi law would ban
nearly all abortions after 15 weeks.
So the question is,
can the states ban abortion before viability
without violating the Constitution?
-Mississippi is one of a number of states around the country
led by Republicans
that have passed more and more restrictive abortion laws,
acknowledging often that they know that the law
will be unconstitutional under the court's precedence
but that they want to challenge it.
They wanted to get the issue
back in front of the Supreme Court.
-If the Supreme Court reverses the lower court's decision
in Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization,
it would further restrict the only remaining abortion provider
in the state of Mississippi.
-We're about to make it law.
-But this isn't the first time conservative states
have tried to reach the Supreme Court
with restrictive abortion laws.
So why is this case the one that made it?
-I hope at some point
Mississippi is free of abortion completely.
-This case provides an attractive vehicle
for the court to use to broadly rewrite the rule
that states can't prohibit abortions before viability.
Whereas other types of abortion restrictions
that didn't contain flat-out prohibitions on abortion
but instead imposed onerous restrictions
on women seeking abortions or doctors providing abortions,
those wouldn't allow the court to rewrite this rule.
[crowd chanting]
-Twenty-two states have already enacted laws
that would restrict abortion access
earlier than what is currently allowed,
including 11 states
that have so-called trigger laws on the books
that would ban abortion in most cases if Roe is overturned.
-So in 1973, in Roe versus Wade, the Supreme Court said
that women have a constitutional right
to decide to end their pregnancy via abortion.
-Thus, the anti-abortion laws of 46 states
were rendered unconstitutional.
-We are here with all of pro-choice America today
awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court.
-In 1992, in Planned Parenthood versus Casey,
the Supreme Court was asked to overrule Roe.
And a majority of the court, five justices,
declined that invitation
and reaffirmed that women do have the constitutional rights
to decide to end their pregnancy.
Before viability, states cannot impose an undue burden
on women seeking access to abortion.
And now, we are in a world where the Supreme Court
will basically be re-deciding those two questions.
First, whether to overrule Roe and Casey.
And second, what is the legal test
that determines whether abortion restrictions are constitutional.
There is no way to uphold Mississippi's law
without overruling Roe and Casey
or dramatically rewriting the law
regarding abortion restrictions.
-Another key factor in the timing of this case
is the court's 6-3 conservative majority,
cemented by the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett
in October 2020.
-President Trump was able to nominate three justices
to the Supreme Court,
and he said that he was gonna nominate justices
who would overturn Roe v. Wade.
-Fill that seat! Fill that seat!
-Fetuses are not babies.
And abortion is not murder.
-Now, the court's precedents are supposed to stand
unless there is good reason to change them.
But good reason is usually
in the eye of the individual justice.
Next term, we're gonna see just how far
the conservative majority is ready to go
to change some of the court's past decisions.
-During her confirmation hearings,
Barrett didn't explicitly state if she believes
Roe versus Wade could be overruled.
She also cited scholars who did not classify it
as a super precedent.
-Is Roe a super precedent?
-As Richard Fallon from Harvard said,
Roe is not a super precedent
because calls for its overruling have never ceased,
but that doesn't mean that Roe should be overruled.
-Do you agree with Justice Scalia's view
that Roe can and should be overturned by the Supreme Court?
-That's a case that's litigated.
It could -- You know, its contours could come up again,
in fact, do come up.
What I will commit is that
I will obey all the rules of stare decisis,
applying all the factors --
reliance, workability,
being undermined by later facts in law,
just all the standard factors.
And I promise to do that for any issue that comes up,
abortion or anything else. I'll follow the law.
-The court likely won't hear the case
until the end of 2021 or beginning of 2022.
-That means we could be looking at June 2022
before we actually see what the court has done with this.
It will also be, though, right as the midterm elections
are gearing up.
And it seems, of course, that abortion,
one of the most controversial issues in politics,
will become even that much more controversial.
-I can imagine one of two worlds.
You know, one, a world in which the court says
Roe or Casey is overruled
could trigger those kind of automatic provisions in law
that, you know, would criminalize abortion
in the event that Roe or Casey are overruled.
I think that will embolden states
to try out, "Well, what restrictions can we actually adopt?"
Even if there's no automatic trigger,
there's no reason to think that legislatures
that have been attempting
to regulate abortion out of existence
and have been enacting restrictions
that are obviously unconstitutional
under existing law
won't the next day re-enact those restrictions
once there's a change in the law.
Again, there is no reason to take this case
unless the court was going to change the law,
given that there's no disagreement
in the lower federal courts,
no one disagrees about whether laws like this
are unconstitutional.
So, in that sense, you know,
a lot of the writing appears to be on the wall.
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