[Washington Examiner] More than 200 members of Congress asked the Supreme Court to consider overturning Roe v. Wade, the 1973 ruling that legalized abortion nationwide, when it takes up a major abortion case this spring.
The request was in an amicus brief filed Thursday in support of a Louisiana law the Supreme Court is reviewing that requires doctors who provide abortions to have admitting privileges at a local hospital.
A total of 207 lawmakers agreed that the Louisiana law should be allowed to stand, but also said the high court's decisions on Roe and its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which allowed states to regulate abortion, "should be reconsidered and, if appropriate, overruled."
The 39 Republicans in the Senate and 168 lawmakers in the House, all of them Republicans except for Democrats Dan Lipinski and Collin Peterson, want the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe and Casey. If Roe were to be overturned, then decisions about the legalization of abortion would fall to states, some of whom are already poised to make abortion illegal.
Abortion rights groups have been concerned about the weakening or overturning of Roe since the Republican-controlled Senate confirmed two of President Trump's Supreme Court appointees, Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. The Roe decision legalized abortion across the United States until fetal viability, which is generally understood to be about 24 weeks into a pregnancy.
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