Senate Pro Temp Greg Treat issues statement after U.S. Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade
Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat, R-Oklahoma City, issued a statement after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade on Friday, June 24. In a press release from the state Senate Staff sent to CapitolBeatOK.com, he said:
“Today is a solemn day and today is an overwhelming joyous day – solemn as we remember the 63 million lives terminated and joyous because of answered prayers. Those of us in the pro-life movement have long dreamt of this day, and we have been ridiculed for believing the day would ever come. The work, the prayers, the advocacy that countless dedicated men and women have done since the egregious decision was handed down on January 22, 1973, have come to fruition. Praise God!
“Oklahomans overwhelmingly value life. As a state we are extremely well positioned to be able to protect life from its beginning to its natural end. We have enacted laws that anticipated this day and now Oklahoma can fully protect life.”
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.”