Pro-life battles moving to center stage in nation’s capital; Mississippi senator takes up mantle

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Special) — The Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) filed an amicus brief July 27 in a Mississippi abortion case that the U.S. Supreme Court will hear in October.

The Mississippi law at the center of the legal contest, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, is an effort to regulate abortion. In taking up the case, the Supreme Court agreed to review the Mississippi legislation that would replace the “viability standard” now in use with a limit on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

At issue are the two U.S. Supreme Court rulings that have allowed unlimited abortion nationwide during all nine months of gestation. Those cases are Roe v. Wade in 1973 and Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

“For too long, the Roe and Casey decisions have allowed our nation to turn a blind eye to the plight of those who have no voice,” said Chelsea Patterson Sobolik, ERLC acting director of public policy. “Our brief asks the Court to overturn those two cases and set a new precedent that respects every life.

“With each passing day, more and more people recognize pre-born lives are worthy of protection. The Dobbs case provides another chance for the Court to come to that same conclusion and affirm the fundamental right to life.”

U.S. Senator Roger Wicker (R.-Miss.) issued a statement July 23 supporting his home state’s role in the fight to protect developing human life. “Mississippi is leading the charge in standing up for the most vulnerable in our society.

“This case represents the most significant challenge in a generation to Roe v. Wade, which has imposed abortion on demand across this country for nearly 50 years. I am proud to stand with Mississippi in this noble fight.”

Wicker is also heading up the impending battle in the U.S. Senate over Democrats’ effort to trash the Hyde Amendment that has prevented federal tax dollars from funding elective abortions for 45 years.

He and fellow U.S. Senator Joe Manchin (D.-W.V.) sent a letter July 21 to Senate leadership and the Senate Appropriations Committee requesting the continued inclusion of the Hyde Amendment, which must be approved on a regular basis as part of federal government funding measures.

“The Hyde Amendment is a decades-long, consensus-building compromise, and we urge you to maintain this longstanding provision in the Fiscal Year 2022 bill,” the senators wrote.

If pro-Hyde supporters in the Democrat-controlled Senate are successful in placing the amendment back into the 2022 funding bill, the legislation would then have to pass the Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives and be signed into law by Democrat U.S. President Joe Biden.

Observers have expressed doubts that Biden would sign such a bill, since the original legislation stripped of the Hyde Amendment originated from The White House.