GOP Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said Sunday if the Supreme Court upholds his state’s strict 15-week abortion ban on abortion, he hopes they’ll overturn the historical 1973 decision that made abortion legal across the country as well.
In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Reeves said he believes “as do many Americans” that the justices could “look at the Roe v. Wade case and come to the conclusion that the court just simply got it wrong in 1973.”
“There’s nothing in the Constitution that prohibits individual states from enacting their own laws,” Reeves added. “After all, that's really what the Founding Fathers intended for any issue that is not explicit in the Constitution, it should be left to the states and the state legislatures and democratic process. I just want to make sure everyone is clear that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, that doesn't mean that no one in America is going to have access — although that might make people like me happy.”
“But what it does mean is that all 50 states, the laboratories of democracy, are going to have the ability to enact their own laws with respect to abortion. I think that's the way it should be in America,” he asserted.
According to Reeves, if his own state’s 15-week ban is upheld, he will eagerly enforce it.
“That is a yes because if you believe, as I believe, very strongly that that innocent, unborn child in the mother's womb is, in fact, a child, the most important word when we talk about unborn children is not unborn but it's children. Yes, I will do everything I can to protect the lives of those children,” he said.
“If, in fact, our 15-week ban is upheld, the court also could go further, as you well know. They could consider overturning… the Planned Parenthood v. Casey case dating back to 1992. They could overturn Roe v. Wade in 1973. The commentary around the oral arguments on Wednesday certainly give people like me who hope they do both of those things some reason for optimism.
Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.
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