Abortion rights: Here are the two cases the Supreme Court could overturn

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The decisions, in 1973 and 1992, laid down constitutional markers while describing in powerful terms the difficult issues at hand. In Roe v. Wade, the justices acknowledged at the outset “the sensitive and emotional nature of the abortion controversy, of the vigorous opposing views, even among physicians, and of the deep and seemingly absolute convictions that the subject inspires.”

Nearly two decades later, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the justices asserted: “Men and women of good conscience can disagree, and we suppose some always shall disagree, about the profound moral and spiritual implications of terminating a pregnancy, even in its earliest stage. Some of us as individuals find abortion offensive to our most basic principles of morality, but that cannot control our decision. Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code.”

At the heart of the Roe decision was protection for the woman’s abortion decision before viability (when a fetus can survive outside the womb), which the justices estimated in 1973 at about 28 weeks. The court in 1992 said advances in neonatal care had brought that down to about 23 weeks of pregnancy, which is roughly where physicians draw the line today. The disputed Mississippi ban would prohibit abortion after 15 weeks — plainly shattering the viability line.

The Casey decision affirmed the core abortion right and underscored adherence to precedent, the concept known as “stare decisis.”

The court said in 1992 that retaining precedent was especially important for cases that, despite being politically divisive, had not been altered by new facts or changes in law. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the justices held fast to Roe’s cutoff line of viability, saying that “viability marks the earliest point at which the State’s interest in fetal life is constitutionally adequate to justify a legislative ban on nontherapeutic abortions.”

As the remade Supreme Court, with three new appointees of former…

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Source : cnn