Oklahoma Speaker Charles McCall praises High Court for reversal of ‘Roe v. Wade’
Oklahoma City — Oklahoma Speaker Charles McCall, a Republican from the southeast Oklahoma town of Atoka, praised the Supreme Court of the United States on Friday (June 24) after the American High Court justices, by a vote of 6-3, reversed ‘Roe v. Wade.’
In his statement sent to CapitolBeatOK.com, Speaker McCall said
“Decades of steadfast prayer and unwavering legislative efforts to protect the lives of the unborn have finally prevailed. Overturning Roe v. Wade justifies the long battle by Oklahoma House Republicans and pro-life allies nationwide to return this matter to the duly elected representatives of state legislatures to decide.
“With Roe overturned and Oklahoma’s several proactive, pro-life policies already in immediate effect, the stage is set for Oklahoma to be America’s most pro-life state.
“For close to 50 years, the silent cries of the millions who lost their lives before even having a chance to live have been heard through the voices of those of us fighting for their rights. The pro-life movement won, securing those yet unborn the future and promise that comes with being born in the United States of America.”
Background of the ‘Dobbs’ case and the ‘Roe’ reversal
Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) was a 7-2 decision in which a U.S. Supreme Court majority concluded the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment triggered a fundamental right to privacy protecting access to abortion.
The decision was among the three or four most controversial U.S. Supreme Court decisions in history.
In the 1992 decision “Planned Parenthood v. Casey”, the court reaffirmed the core of Roe but ended the “trimester” framework that Justice Harry Blackmun, author of the Roe decision, had developed in 1973.
Roe v. Wade, companion case “Doe v. Bolton” and “Casey” have been analyzed and criticized in legal cases and scholarly analyses throughout the half-century since Roe reversed abortion laws in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.
After granting judicial review in a Mississippi case known as “Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on June 24.
The majority opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito said that the U.S. Constitution “does not confer a right to abortion.”
The Court majority further ruled that “the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.”