that only have one clinic. and we have literally dozens of cities in this country with 50,000 people or more, where women have to travel 100 miles for an abortion. that is unduly burdensome. so the question is, how is roberts thinking about precedent, which he cares about, as neal said, he does. that s why he didn t agree with louisiana decision, but he went along with it, because it was consistent with the texas decision. but the balance of the court has changed. i m looking to see, is he going to try to thread this needle in a way that claims not to be overturning roe, but yet fundamentally still guts the ability for women to in a very real-world sense be able to get access to an abortion. neal, just in a couple of minutes, we ll have this rare, wonderful opportunity to actually be inside the court and listen to no cameras allowed, microphones are. we ll be able to sit in that court and listen. tell me, pain the picture of
we re sitting in front of it. you can probably see those demonstrators behind me. we are in this live special coverage now today ahead of those oral arguments in a key mississippi case. the justices are going to hear those arguments from attorneys about the law in that state that bans most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. it directly challenges roe versus wade, which as you know has guaranteed women the right to a safe abortion for nearly half a century. we re going to bring you those arguments live once they start. it s also important to take a step back and talk about how we got here. in january 1973 the supreme court ruled 7-2 that the constitution protects a pregnant woman s right to an abortion without government restriction. jane roe, a pseudonym for norma mckorvey, a 22-year-old woman who was not married, dealing with drug addiction and poverty. she filed suit against henry wade challenging the texas law that prevented her from getting an abortion. the man who literally wr
really could not be larger, jose. this is the biggest showdown over abortion rights in 30 years, and it s possible that roe v. wade could be overturned as a result of this. it s also possible it could be upheld even as the mississippi law is upheld. but either of those outcomes would be a political earthquake. if roe v. wade is overturned, experts expect that most of red state america would outlaw abortion, and the political repercussions of that could be significant, jose. recent nbc polling shows that 54% of americans believe abortion should be legal in most cases. americans remember that we are here today because of politics, because a republican engineered the nomination of two conservative justices when it could have been possible that less conservative justices under a different scenario could have been appointed here. and as a result this court is hearing for the first time arguments over restrictions on abortion and before viability. that s never happened before and it s going
abrupt reversal of roe v. wade? we re all counting votes and looking to what the justices have said on this issue in the past. but in reality, this may have less to do with abortion and more to do with the far-reaching effect of a decision to reverse course in the law here. and we heard this when the court considered the texas abortion law. they were concerned about the use of vigilante justice, the mechanism that texas is using to enforce its law, in cases beyond abortion. could this be used, for instance, for gun rights advocates? i think we ll hear some of that today, as well. if you can reverse roe v. wade, then are there other sorts of established cases that become vulnerable and what could that mean in this newly conservative court? maya, what are you going to be looking for? what magistrates are you going to be looking to listen to? roberts is very central to this. but he s central in a way that would add to what neal has said. when he agreed that the
fighting last month in the supreme court about. you still can t get an abortion in texas after six weeks. and you re going to see people have to travel multiple state lines, and many people don t have the means to do that. not just the financial means, the time off from work, the care for their children, and you know, half of the people having abortions in the united states today do live below the federal poverty line. so this is really an issue of fundamental fairness, economic equality as well as gender equality. a two-part question. you mentioned, for example, the texas decision that we re still waiting on from the supreme court. any decision on this case is not likely to come until probably june. we can t say for sure, but that is what we imagined. there s months in between now and then. what are you doing? what is the center for reproductive rights doing to help women in that interim period, and how are you preparing in case what you see as the worst-case scenario happening, roe