More than 200 members of Congress call for Supreme Court to ‘reconsider’ Roe v. Wade

WASHINGTON - More than 200 members of Congress were part of a legal brief filed Thursday calling for the U.S. Supreme Court to “reconsider” Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal across the country.

Anti-abortion group Americans United for Life filed the brief, signed by lawmakers, in support of Louisiana’s pro-life law, which is set to go before the Supreme Court in March. The law requires a doctor to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles of a facility where the abortion is performed.

Thirty-nine Senators and 168 members of the House of Representatives comprising 38 states were part of the brief. Two of the representatives were Democrats – Collin Peterson, of Minnesota, and Dan Lipinski, of Illinois.

In the legal document, the group called abortions “unworkable.” They also urged the court to consider taking up the issue and possibly overrule Roe v. Wade.

“Forty-six years after Roe was decided, it remains a radically unsettled precedent: two of the seven Justices who originally joined the minority subsequently repudiated it in whole or in part, and virtually every abortion decision since has been closely divided,” the document stated.

The Louisiana case – June Medical Services v. Gee – is the first abortion-related case to go in front of the Supreme Court since Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh were sworn-in.

In 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a 7-2 decision that protected a woman’s right to choose to have an abortion.

This story was reported from Los Angeles.