Utah's senior senator has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade abortion ruling and allow states to set their own rules.
In a "friend of the court" brief filed with Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Mike Lee urged the nation's top court to use a Mississippi case before it to overturn prior rulings that upheld the right to an abortion.
"This status quo is untenable. Where a legal doctrine has repeatedly failed to offer clarity—where it has proved unworkable in the past and will likely engender unpredictable consequences in the future—its existence constitutes an open invitation to judges to interpret it according to their own policy preferences, usurping the constitutional prerogatives of the legislature. Roe and Casey should be overruled, and the question of abortion legislation should be returned to the states," they wrote, referring to Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
The U.S. Supreme Court is taking up Mississippi's law that bans abortions after 15 weeks.
A judge has put that lawsuit against Utah on hold while the U.S. Supreme Court considers the Mississippi case.
In 2020, the Utah State Legislature passed a law banning all elective abortions in the state. It would only go into effect if the U.S. Supreme Court were to overturn the Roe case.
Read the filing by Sens. Lee, Hawley and Cruz here:
