Judicial Watch ‘Friend of Court’ Brief: Supreme Court Should Overturn Roe v. Wade

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced that it filed an amicus curiae brief with the Supreme Court in favor of overturning Roe v. Wade. The brief was filed in the Dobbs case, being argued today before the Supreme Court. The Judicial Watch brief, filed in support of the constitutionality of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, argues that states have the right under the Constitution to regulate abortion and protect unborn life. (Dobbs v. Jackson (No. 19-1392)). 

In its brief, Judicial Watch argues the Supreme Court should overturn Roe and restore the regulation of abortion to the state:

Despite creative judicial legislating, it is crystal clear that abortion does not involve war, peace, negotiation, foreign commerce, or taxation. Abortion fits squarely into the states’ sphere of objects that concern the “lives, liberties, and properties of the people.” Not being an enumerated power, the Roe Court did not have the authority to overturn the abortion laws of the states.

Additionally, Judicial Watch notes that Roe v. Wade didn’t provide clarity, but instead muddied the waters:

Far from creating a national consensus, Roe threw the states into a 48-year contentious legal battle. Even some abortion advocates eschew the injudicious method of federalizing abortion as short-circuiting a naturally evolving jurisprudence under state laws. As federal and state judges attempt to apply this Court’s precedents, a national landscape of inconsistent, inconclusive, and untenable rules have emerged. As a national policy, abortion jurisprudence is, in a word, a mess. Stubbornly holding on to unconstitutional precedent will never have a positive outcome. It is time to return abortion policy to the states where it belongs and where the democratic process can effectively work.

“States must be able to defend life and the disastrous Roe decision has upended our constitutional order,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “The Supreme Court has a chance to right a constitutional wrong in a way that will allow Americans again to protect the right to life.”

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