Supreme Court agrees to hear major abortion case challenging Roe vs. Wade

The Supreme Court said Monday it would hear a major challenge to the reach of the landmark Roe vs. Wade abortion ruling and decide whether states may bar nearly all abortions after 15 weeks of a pregnancy.

The justices said they had voted to hear an appeal from Mississippi that urges the court to “reconsider the bright-line viability rule” that says states may not prohibit abortions until the time a fetus is viable or capable of living on its own. This is generally about the 23rd week of a pregnancy.

It is the court’s first major move to reconsider abortion rights since Justice Amy Coney Barrett replaced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September shortly after Mississippi had lodged its appeal. Barrett, who has acknowledged being personally opposed to abortion, is widely expected to be the vote that would allow the court’s conservative majority to rein in abortion rights.

Several other Republican-led states have passed laws to forbid abortions at early stages of a pregnancy, but all those measures have been blocked because of the court’s precedents on abortion.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.