White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday that President Joe Biden is committed to “codifying” Roe v. Wade regardless of how the Supreme Court rules in an upcoming case over a Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
Psaki declined to comment on the Supreme Court’s decision to take up the case while also criticizing the Mississippi law as just one of many “draconian state laws” that “attack” “the right to health care, the right to choose.”
“And the president and the VP are devoted to ensuring that every American has access to health care, including reproductive health care, regardless of their income, ZIP code, race, health insurance status or immigration status,” she added. “As such, the president is committed to codifying Roe regardless of the … outcome of this case.”
The court agreed to hear the case on the Mississippi law after it was struck down twice by lower courts.
In 2019, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that the state’s abortion restriction placed an unconstitutional burden on a woman’s “right” to an abortion, thus violating the Roe v. Wade precedent.
Last term, the Supreme Court voted to block a Louisiana abortion limit, in a decision led by the five liberal justices.
But since then, the bench has become much more conservative with Justice Amy Coney Barrett joining former president Donald Trump’s other two appointments, Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch.
Both Kavanaugh and Gorsuch dissented from Chief Justice John Roberts’s decision to block the Louisiana law.
The central question in the Mississippi case has to do with viability — whether a fetus can survive outside the woman at 15 weeks.
Even the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals admitted in its ruling that the state “conceded that it had identified no medical evidence that a fetus would be viable at 15 weeks.”
The Mississippi law would allow exceptions to the 15-week ban in cases of medical emergency or severe fetal abnormality.
Doctors found in violation of the ban would face mandatory suspension or revocation of their medical license.
