Antiabortion Activists Want the Supreme Court to Ban Abortion on a Federal Level
Just months after Roe v. Wade was overturned, conservative antiabortion activists have now petitioned the Supreme Court to take on a case that would establish “fetal personhood” nationwide — potentially producing a federal ban on abortion.
An abortion rights activist holds a sign depicting Supreme Court justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr, Amy Coney Barrett, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Brett M. Kavanaugh during a demonstration outside a Planned Parenthood clinic as they safeguard the clinic from a possible protest by a far-right group on July 16, 2022, in Santa Monica, California. (Mario Tama / Getty Images)
When the US Supreme Court allowed states to limit reproductive rights in its June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, experts predicted that conservatives would soon use the decision to try to secure a federal ban on abortion.
Now that’s exactly what’s happening — at the very moment abortion rights have become a central issue in the midterm elections.
Antiabortion activists in Rhode Island just filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to consider overturning their state judges’ recent decision that fetuses do not have standing to challenge the state’s law protecting abortion rights. They want the high court to rule that fetuses are entitled to due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment. Such a ruling establishing “fetal personhood” would go beyond the Dobbs ruling, by banning abortions nationwide, rather than leaving the issue to the states.
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