Thread by @stevenmazie

NEW: Mississippi clinic has just filed its response brief in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Org, the abortion case coming to SCOTUS this fall.

Clinic begins by urging the Court to dismiss the case due to the state’s possibly-not-kosher bait-and-switch: it pivoted to a frontal attack on Roe/Casey in the merits briefing after cert was granted

Brief then argues that overruling Roe/Casey would undermine the principle of stare decisis—the idea that the Supreme Court should stand by old precedents (“let the decision stand”)

In this vein, clinic argues that Roe is “embedded” in America’s “national culture” and (summoning Justice Ginsburg’s favored justification for abortion rights) is crucial for women’s equal participation in society.

Another key section of the brief: there is no obvious or plausible replacement for the viability line established in Casey (that no abortion prohibitions are constitutional prior to the fetus's ability to survive outside the womb)

More on viability...

The brief closes by highlighting the “chaos” and “upheaval” that would ensue if Roe were to be jettisoned, with the Texas abortion law as an example

And the closing lines set out the stakes: whether or not the Court explicitly overturns Roe/Casey, upholding Mississippi's 15-week ban will functionally bring an end to the constitutional right to abortion

The full brief is available here supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/1…

The "half-measures" would be fiddling with Roe/Casey to permit pre-viability bans w/o announcing those decisions dead.

Over the summer, @ProfMMurray and I predicted this may be what happens next spring. washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/…