Outside the U.S. Supreme Court building on Wednesday, December 1, pro-life supporters far outnumbered pro-abortion protestors. Inside the building, the number of justices expressing deep concerns with various aspects of its 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade and its 1992 ruling in Planned Parenthood v. Casey far outnumbered justices who supported keeping those rulings intact.

No matter the ultimate outcome, today’s oral arguments were historic.

Mississippi’s Solicitor General, Scott Stewart, spoke first, followed by attorney Julie Rikelman on behalf of the Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the abortion seller challenging Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban. Those two were followed by U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, who also argued that the Mississippi law was unconstitutional.

Not only did Stewart have to endure hostile questioning from the court’s three pro-abortion liberals – Sonia Sotomayor, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan – but also long-winded speeches apparently designed more to sway the conservative side of the bench rather than elicit answers from Stewart. Sotomayor and Breyer, in particular, took up large blocks of the questioning in order to indirectly lecture their fellow justices about the importance of abortion and the need to keep Roe and Casey undisturbed.

The United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. In this much anticipated case, the Court reconsidered the constitutional underpinnings of Roe v. Wade, the case that legalized abortion for all 50 states
in 1973.

Oral arguments lasted for nearly two hours and were truly historic. You can read a summary of what was discussed by the justices here.

Much of the dialogue was on the topic of whether it is appropriate for the Court to overturn a past ruling. The Supreme Court has reversed its holdings before when they later determined that the case was wrongly decided.

Predictability, the abortion lawyers argued that past precedent—Roe v. Wade—needed to be upheld.

Mississippi Solicitor General Scott Stewart, arguing in support of the Mississippi law limiting abortion, urged the court to reject Roe v. Wade and its sister case Planned Parenthood v. Casey. He rightly acknowledged, “They have no basis in the Constitution. They have no home in our history or traditions. They’ve damaged the democratic process. They poison the law.”

Coming out of the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, you might have missed news last week of a significant study concerning the current state of the American Family. 

“The Divided State of Our Unions: Family Formation in (Post) Covid America” confirms much of what we’ve been tracking here at Focus on the Family regarding the rapidly evolving dynamics surrounding attitudes toward marriage and children.  

A crisis almost never leaves anyone the same, so a fair question to ask is just how has the global pandemic impacted our relationships?  

The news is both good and bad.

According to this new report, which comes to us from the Institute for Family Studies, the American Enterprise and the Wheatley Foundation, interest in marriage is up by two percent across the general population and up by eight percent for those who regularly attend religious services. 

In other words – faith matters.