CNN Supreme Court analyst Joan Biskupic said the Supreme Court’s ruling on the Texas abortion law is “a prelude to the real main event the justices are now considering.”
“That’s that Mississippi case that would really undercut Roe v. Wade nationwide, not just in Texas. And we won’t see that ruling ’til June, but we see right now a glimpse of what is coming,” Biskupic said.
The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, stems from a lawsuit filed by abortion providers challenging Mississippi’s 2018 law prohibiting abortion after 15 weeks into pregnancy. The ban is currently on hold due to lower court orders that cited the current Supreme Court precedent protecting the right to an abortion until fetal viability, a point around 24 weeks into the pregnancy.
“We now see why it took them so long to deliver this,” she added.
“We’ve got a splintered vote … And we have Chief Justice John Roberts breaking off with the liberals, complaining about, you know, other defendants who should be able to be sued here. Then you have the three remaining liberals — [Sonia] Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan — also talking about how the right to abortion in Texas has essentially not been in effect since Sept. 1,” she said.
Biskupic said Justice Neil Gorsuch, former President Trump’s appointee, wrote the main opinion.
“Roberts has always been an opponent of abortion rights. He is not someone who you think of as trying to save the day for reproductive rights in America. But this just shows how far this court has turned to the right, that he is now aligning with the more liberal justices. And I think that it shows our new era of reproductive rights and who will actually be in control,” Biskupic said.
CNN’s Tierney Sneed contributed to this post.
