Listen Live: Supreme Court hears arguments in major Mississippi abortion case
CBSN
Washington — The future of abortion rights is facing its most consequential test in nearly 30 years as the Supreme Court convenes Wednesday to hear a high-stakes showdown that takes aim at nearly five decades of precedent.
At the heart of the dispute before the high court, now with a 6-3 conservative majority, is a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. State officials have used the case, known as Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, as a vehicle to ask the justices to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to an abortion. Pro-abortion rights advocates warn a decision upholding the 2018 law would pave the way for states to ban the procedure entirely.
"There is no middle ground in Dobbs," said Sherif Girgis, a professor at University of Notre Dame Law School who clerked for Justice Samuel Alito. "It's very hard for me to see how the court could uphold the 15-week law without entirely eliminating the constitutional entitlement to elective abortion in Roe and Casey."
Ashley White received her earliest combat action badge from the United States Army soon after the first lieutenant arrived in Afghanistan. The silver military award, recognizing soldiers who've been personally engaged by an attacker during conflict, was considered an achievement in and of itself as well as an affirming rite of passage for the newly deployed. White had earned it for using her own body to shield a group of civilian women and children from gunfire that broke out in the midst of her third mission in Kandahar province. All of them survived. She never mentioned the badge to anyone in her battalion.