Last week, the Alabama Center for Law and Liberty had the honor of asking the United States Supreme Court to finally overrule Roe v. Wade and its progeny.

The case before the Supreme Court is called Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In 2018, Mississippi passed a law that banned abortion after 15 weeks. The state’s sole abortion provider sued and argued that it was unconstitutional under Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In those two cases, the Supreme Court held that a state may not ban abortions before the baby reaches viability, which is the point where a baby can survive outside the womb. Typically, doctors think a baby reaches viability sometime between 20-24 weeks.

The lower courts struck down Mississippi’s law, and Mississippi asked the Supreme Court to take the case. The Supreme Court granted its petition, agreeing to consider whether all pre-viability bans on abortion are unconstitutional.

ACLL filed an amicus brief raising two points: first, the viability standard should be discarded; but second, the Court should not stop there but instead take the opportunity to throw out Roe and its progeny altogether.

As to the first point, ACLL drew heavily on the writings of Chief Justice Parker of the Alabama Supreme Court, who has been the country’s foremost judge demonstrating how every other area of the law treats unborn children as people except for abortion. Citing his writings, ACLL showed how criminal law, tort law, property law, guardianship law, family law, and healthcare law protect the rights of unborn children, largely without caring whether the child is viable or not. ACLL also argued that taken to its logical conclusion, the viability rule means that a person has the right to kill another if the latter is dependent on him for survival. For both of those reasons, the viability standard should be thrown out.

But the question after that is whether anything from Roe should remain. We argued that the Court would necessarily have to look at the Constitution to determine that answer. And when the Court looks at the Constitution, it can conclude only one thing: Roe has no basis in the Constitution at all and must be discarded.

Prior to filing the brief, ACLL President Matt Clark wrote an article for the Regent University Law Review arguing that we have six justices who would be willing to discard Roe if a party would ask them to do so and present a good case. ACLL did its best to raise the point, and Clark’s article encouraged other pro-life advocates to do the same.

Fortunately, on the same day that ACLL filed its brief, Mississippi filed its opening brief–and it likewise argued that the Supreme Court should throw out Roe and its progeny! Mississippi made its case very well; it is exactly the kind of case that Clark thinks would sway the Court. Since then, dozens of amicus briefs from pro-life organizations have come in, and many of them are arguing the same thing.

The question has been squarely presented to the U.S. Supreme Court, and we believe that six justices would be willing to overrule Roe. Please join us in praying that it happens.

To read ACLL’s amicus brief, click here.

To read Clark’s law review article explaining why we have the votes, click here.

To read ACLL’s case page on Dobbs, click here.