{"id":253156,"date":"2021-09-21T18:38:06","date_gmt":"2021-09-21T23:38:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=253156"},"modified":"2021-09-21T13:57:40","modified_gmt":"2021-09-21T18:57:40","slug":"abortion-facilitys-weak-response-supreme-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/abortion-facilitys-weak-response-supreme-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Abortion facility files ‘weak’ response in upcoming case before Supreme Court"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Analysts reviewing the response in a 15-week abortion case before the United States Supreme Court have described the abortion facility brief as “weak,” using “outdated research and flawed analysis” and offering “no solid arguments in defense of Roe.”<\/p>\n

The Jackson Women’s Health Organization (JWHO) in the state of Mississippi filed its response in the\u00a0Dobbs v. Jackson Women\u2019s Health Organization case,\u00a0<\/em>in which the Court has agreed to answer the\u00a0question<\/a>,\u00a0\u201cUnder the Constitution, may a State prohibit elective abortions before viability?\u201d \"Image:<\/p>\n

Jackson Women’s Health files SCOTUS brief in Dobbs abortion case (Image: Twitter)<\/p>\n

The case, which would save tens of thousands<\/a> of human babies if upheld, was brought by Thomas E. Dobbs, State Health Officer of the Mississippi Department of Health. It centers around a Mississippi abortion law which restricts abortion beginning at 15 weeks gestation (approximately four months). All abortions are horrific but procedures at this gestational age have been described as brutal, barbaric<\/a> and violent<\/a> \u2014 killing which should have\u00a0no place<\/a> in a civilized society.<\/p>\n

JWHO, the only abortion facility in Mississippi, brought the case “on behalf of itself and its patients, and Sacheen Carr-Ellis, M.D., M.P.H., on behalf of herself and her patients…” the document<\/a> states.\u00a0“The Providers offer abortion care up to 16 weeks 0 days LMP. Approximately 100 patients per year obtain an abortion after 15 weeks from the Providers.”<\/p>\n

The brief attempts to paint Mississippi’s law as “extreme,” resting on the outdated notion in Roe v. Wade<\/em> that abortion is a “right” and therefore a woman can end the life of her preborn child for any reason up to viability and even up to birth<\/a> where states permit it.<\/p>\n

JWHO’s brief\u00a0accepts the unsound<\/a> “arbitrary” viability-rule<\/a> enacted in Roe<\/em>, even though it was never based on science but was instead\u00a0 a\u00a0political<\/a>\u00a0decision. In Roe, the Justices deemed<\/a> viability as the point in pregnancy when the child could survive outside the womb (which, at that time, was approximately 24 weeks; today it is weeks earlier). The brief refuses to consider scientific evidence<\/a> presented by the multiple legal scholars and organizations<\/a> on the developing child in the womb.<\/p>\n

JWHO’s brief states in part:<\/p>\n

Mississippi is forced into its extreme position because it has nothing serious to offer in place of the viability line. Instead, the impractical and unstable alternatives the State proposes confirm that the Court was right in Casey to retain the viability line. There is no heightened scrutiny framework (stripped of the viability rule) that lower courts could administer against the inevitable cascade of state abortion bans that would follow if the Court does anything here other than affirm. Nor could the Court apply the State\u2019s version of an \u201cundue burden\u201d approach without gutting Casey and Roe. The very essence of those decisions is the right of every individual to decide whether to continue a pre-viability pregnancy to term. <\/em><\/p>\n

The only way, therefore, to avoid inflicting profound damage to individual autonomy and women\u2019s equal status in society is to adhere to the considered judgment of the Court\u2019s prior decisions.<\/em><\/p>\n

The JWHO claimed in the brief that if Mississippi’s law is upheld, the decision would “scuttle a half-century of precedent and invite states to ban abortion entirely.”<\/p>\n

In response<\/a>, Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch said the JWHO brief offered “no solid arguments in defense of Roe and the Court should overturn this flawed and hopelessly unworkable precedent.”<\/p>\n

“[F]ifty years, abortion policy has been plagued by flawed legal rules that even some of the most ardent abortion supporters have refused to defend”, the AG also stated in her public release<\/a>.<\/p>\n