Mississippi asks U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v Wade

Lawyers for the state of Mississippi urged the Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn Roe v. Wade, taking a more aggressive approach than the one they presented when they asked the court to hear the case a year ago.

The case for overturning the two main decisions that legalized abortion in the U.S. — Roe v. Wade in 1973 and a later case, 1992’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey — is overwhelming, the state said. “The conclusion that abortion is a constitutional right has no basis in text, structure, history, or tradition,” it said.

By ruling that a state may not impose an undue burden on a right to abortion, the Supreme Court has placed itself “at the center of a controversy that it can never resolve.”