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--:-- John Bickley: A new era for abortion law has begun in the United States. In a monumental decision that overturns 40 years of federal abortion law, the Supreme Court has reversed Roe v. Wade, ruling that the Constitution does not confer a right to abortion.
--:-- Georgia Howe: I'm Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief John Bickley with Georgia Howe. It's Friday, June 24th, and this is a special edition of Morning Wire.
--:-- John Bickley: Joining us to discuss the landmark ruling by the Supreme Court is Daily Wire's Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: So, Megan, first, break down the ruling for us. This is a total overturning of Roe, correct?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yes, that is correct. So this was a 6-3 decision. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh, and Chief Justice John Roberts were in the majority, reversing the previous Roe decision that granted the quote-unquote right to abortion.
--:-- Megan Basham: So Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer were in the minority. Now, Alito, as expected, based on that draft that leaked in early May, wrote this opinion. And he said that Roe sparked a national controversy that has embittered our political culture for a half century.
--:-- Megan Basham: We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled. The Constitution makes no reference to abortion and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision. He also said, like the infamous decision in Plessy v. Ferguson, Roe was also egregiously wrong and on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, in the dissent, Kagan, Breyer, and Sotomayor jointly wrote that the majority's decision says that from the very moment of fertilization, a woman has no rights to speak of. A state can force her to bring a pregnancy to term, even at the steepest personal and familial costs.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now they continued with some pretty stark language so I just going to quote this verbatim if you hang with me for a second. With sorrow for this court but more for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection, we dissent.
--:-- Megan Basham: As of today, this court holds, a state can always force a woman to give birth, prohibiting even the earliest abortions. A state can thus transform what, when freely undertaken, is a wonder into what, when forced, may be a nightmare.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, as we noted, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the majority, but he split a little bit from what the rest of the conservatives decided. In a separate concurrence, he makes it clear that he would have preferred a much more incremental ruling that would have upheld Mississippi's 15-week restriction on abortion, but in a more narrow way that would have left Roe in place.
--:-- Megan Basham: Here's what Heritage Foundation senior legal fellow Sarah Perry had to tell us about that Roberts concurrence. While he agrees that the bright line viability rule, in other words, that a woman can terminate her pregnancy up and to the point that a fetus is viable, should be discarded.
--:-- Megan Basham: But he says that the ultimate outcome is ultimately too dramatic and consequential and that they went far beyond what Mississippi had originally asked, which was not to necessarily overrule Roe versus Wade or that it had to take such an extreme position.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, Justice Thomas also wrote a concurrence that's likely to spark some raised eyebrows. Tell us about that.
--:-- Megan Basham: That's right. He did. So in that majority opinion, Alito was clear that this ruling should only apply to Roe, not to other SCOTUS decisions based on that right to privacy found in the 14th Amendment. Well, Thomas disagreed with that. He wrote that the court should reconsider other decisions based on similar reasoning to Roe.
--:-- Megan Basham: And he specifically cited cases that provide a right to contraception, homosexual sex, and same-sex marriage. All of those rest on that right to privacy. So I think we can expect to see activists raising the alarm about these other issues as well.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now Megan we discussed this before but as we can see from the protests outside the court there a lot of fear around overturning of Roe What happens now?
--:-- Megan Basham: Yes And you know contrary to some popular conception this ruling does not outlaw abortion What the decision does is send it back to the states.
--:-- Megan Basham: We can't say that enough. So in 14 states with trigger laws or bans that are already on the books, states like Utah, Arkansas, Tennessee, while there, abortion will be immediately banned or at least significantly limited.
--:-- Megan Basham: But other states like California and Colorado have taken steps to make sure that abortion is legal in some form through all nine months. And legislators in other states like Oregon are saying that they're looking at setting up something called reproductive justice funds that will help women travel to their states for abortion.
--:-- Megan Basham: A few companies are already out today saying the same. Disney, for example, sent out an email this morning promising employees that it is committed to, quote, removing barriers to reproductive care and will pay for travel to access abortion.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Let's get some reactions in D.C. How have Republicans and Democrats reacted?
--:-- Megan Basham: Well, Republicans, as you might expect, are in a pretty celebratory mood. This was New York Congresswoman Elise Stefanik.
--:-- Elise Stefanik: House Republicans are incredibly grateful for the pro-life movement's tireless efforts for decades leading to this day to give a voice to the voiceless and protect our most vulnerable, unborn babies.
--:-- Megan Basham: Democrats, on the other hand, are very unhappy and are promising this decision will turn out pro-choice voters to the polls. So this was House Leader Nancy Pelosi speaking on Friday.
--:-- Nancy Pelosi: Today, the Republican-controlled Supreme Court has achieved their dark, extreme goal of ripping away a woman's right to make their own reproductive health decisions.
--:-- Nancy Pelosi: In the Congress, be aware of this. The Republicans are plotting a nationwide abortion ban. They cannot be allowed to have a majority in the Congress to do that.
--:-- Nancy Pelosi: This is deadly serious. But we are not going to let this pass. A woman's right to choose reproductive freedom is on the ballot in November.
--:-- Georgia Howe: All right Megan thanks so much for reporting Absolutely It quite the historic day we witnessing
--:-- Megan Basham: I want to pivot now to the scene at the Supreme Court Our reporter Mary Margaret Olihan has been outside the courthouse since this morning Mary Margaret, what's the atmosphere been like there?
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: Hey, Georgia, great to be here. So I got to the Supreme Court at 9 a.m. We were all anticipating a ruling, all these protesters gathered, media gathered, but we didn't know for sure whether it was coming today.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: And we've been at the court every decision day for weeks now, so we weren't quite sure. But sure enough, at 10 a.m., decision dropped. And we knew because the pro-life protesters began just screaming for joy.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: They were so excited. And then the pro-abortion protesters were kind of silent for a moment. They're always on the left side of the court. And then as they realized what had happened, they all started chanting.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: They started saying that the ruling was illegitimate. Meanwhile, the pro-life protesters were really excited. They were reacting.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: And as the next few hours progressed, the streets started filling up. More police started showing up. We even saw some police in riot gear. I looked around for them later in the day and I didn't see them, so they may have left.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: But a lot of the roads are shut down, a lot of police presence there, and the streets are completely filled with protesters outside the court right now.
--:-- Georgia Howe: Now, there's been a lot of concerns about the protests turning violent. At least one organization has promised to do so. Tell us about that.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: So yes, Jane's Revenge, a pro-abortion group that has taken responsibility for a ton of the attacks that have taken place against pro-life centers and clinics and organizations around the country, that group has called for protesting that the night that Roe was overturned.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: And their language is very, very concerning. They talk about how it's open season on pro-lifers, and they want people to be out in the streets protesting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: So tonight, there'll be more protests and we'll be down in the streets. Daily Wire will be covering, and we can bring you more updates from there.
--:-- Mary Margaret Olihan: All right. Well, a historic ruling and potentially a lot of political fallout. Mary Margaret, thanks for reporting.
--:-- Georgia Howe: That was Daily Wire DC correspondent, Mary Margaret Olihan. And earlier we spoke to Daily Wire culture reporter, Megan Basham.
--:-- John Bickley: Thanks for tuning into this special episode of Morning Wire. We'll be back tomorrow with our regular episode.
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