Tipsheet

Pro-Lifers From All Walks of Life Are Unified in Support for Overturning Roe

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  August 01, 2021 11:00 PM

Townhall recently got a first look at a brief filed by former Vice President Mike Pence's organization, Advancing American Freedom (AAF), asking that the U.S. Supreme Court overturn its abortion decisions Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). That brief follows the one recently filed by Mississippi's attorney general, Lynn Fitch. These briefs come as the Court is set to hear oral arguments in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in the fall, to decide the constitutionality of Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban. Fitch and AAF are not the only pro-lifers submitting briefs, however. Far from it.

Other pro-life politicians and organizations filed briefs of their own. 

Many joined in on one, including the one the Mississippi Congressional delegation had a leading hand in. 

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) told Townhall that "I am pleased the Supreme Court has taken up the Mississippi law, which will give the Court a chance to reconsider the current misguided abortion jurisprudence.  I look forward to filing a congressional amicus brief in full support of the State of Mississippi in this important case.  As a Senator, as a woman, and as a mother, I think this case offers us a chance to return the abortion issue to the political process and away from activist judges."

Democrats for Life of America also filed a brief, making the effort non-partisan. 

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Live Action's Lila Rose shared a statement in support of Fitch's brief.

As did Susan B. Anthony List. 

Following the news of Fitch's brief, news outlets published headlines such as Ian Millhiser's "Anti-abortion lawyers are finally being honest about what they want from the Supreme Court" for Vox and El Kilgore's "Anti-Abortion Activists Finally Let the Mask Slip in Plea to Supreme Court" for New York Magazine's Intelligencer. 

Some pro-lifers had a particularly amusing reaction to headlines like these.

Clarke Forsythe, senior counsel at Americans United for Life, who filed a brief of his own in the case, also had an op-ed of his published on July 30 in Newsweek, "Roe v. Wade Has Never Been a Settled Precedent." 

During the confirmation hearings for now Justice Amy Coney Barrett, much attention was given to her analysis of precedent and superprecedent as expressed in a 2013 law review article, "Precedent and Jurisprudential Disagreement." Roe is not considered a superprecedent. 

Curt Levey, a constitutional law attorney and the president of the Committee for Justice, offered some insight for Townhall, speculating that "I doubt the Court will go as far as Mississippi asks. More likely, if Mississippi wins this case, the Court will go just far enough to uphold the law at issue."

He also pointed out that "parties asking the Supreme Court to uphold abortion restrictions don’t typically ask the Court to completely overturn Roe v. Wade" and that "Mississippi itself did not make that argument when they first asked the Court to take this case a year ago."

He did, however, say that "perhaps times have changed in that regard now that Justice Barrett has joined the Court and Chief Justice Roberts is no longer the swing vote."