U.S. Supreme Court throws abortion fight into center of midterms

“This is huge — it's saying that for the first time in a long time that we have a pro-life majority on the Supreme Court.”

In agreeing to hear a potentially groundbreaking abortion case, the Supreme Court has energised activists on both sides of the long-running debate who are now girding to make abortion access a major issue in next year’s midterm elections. For many evangelicals, the case could serve as a validation of more than four decades of persistent work and a sometimes awkward relationship with former President Donald Trump, whose three Supreme Court appointments sealed a 6-3 conservative majority. If those justices unite to uphold a Mississippi law banning abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy, it would mark a first step toward the possible demise of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which established a nationwide right to abortion at any point before a fetus can survive outside the womb, roughly 24 weeks.