After listening to oral arguments Wednesday morning in the Mississippi abortion case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Andrew Napolitano predicted the Roe v. Wade ruling creating a right to abortion will be overturned.
The former New Jersey Superior Court judge and Fox News analyst pointed to the argument of his onetime law-school classmate Associate Justice Samuel Alito as evidence the “conservative wing” of the court is searching for a “rule of universal application to justify reversing” the landmark 1972 case.
In Napolitano’s words, Alito argued that “the court should cut through the legal history and technical jargon since a case — even a monumentally controversial and largely accepted one — can and should be overruled when it is morally or rationally wrong.”
Napolitano noted on Twitter the court’s three liberals and five conservatives — he excluded Chief Justice Roberts — “all tipped their hands about whether Roe v. Wade was properly decided.”
But the heart of the discourse Wednesday was not about abortion, he said, it was about legal doctrine stare decisis, which holds that previously decided and largely relied-on decisions should not be lightly overruled.
Napolitano predicts the court will overrule Roe in a 5-4 vote, with Roberts siding with the liberal wing.
Mississippi, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, is defending a law that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. The current legal standard across the nation bans abortion prior to “fetal viability,” which is about 23 to 24 weeks into pregnancy.
Outside the Supreme Court on Wednesday, pro-life protesters chanted, “Hey hey, ho ho, Roe v. Wade has got to go.”
A pro-abortion group called Shout Your Abortion chanted “Abortion. Pills. Forever” while ingesting tablets of some kind.
Epic action from @ShoutYrAbortion — people took abortion pills outside the Supreme Court! pic.twitter.com/kKditao6Xd
— Erin Matson (@erintothemax) December 1, 2021
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