Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch has filed a supplemental brief with the U.S. Supreme Court on two recent Circuit Court of Appeals opinions that split on which standard to apply in assessing a state’s pre-viability abortion laws.

In one case, the Fifth Circuit applied a balancing of benefits and burdens from Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstadt (2016), and only three days later the Sixth Circuit applied the undue-burden test from Planned Parenthood v Casey (1992).

“The Supreme Court is more inclined to take a case like our defense of Mississippi’s 15-week law when it provides the opportunity to clarify an issue on which circuits have split,” a spokesman with AG Fitch’s office said Thursday. “We wanted to bring this deepening circuit split to the Court’s attention.“

Fitch announced in June 2020 that she had filed a petition in support of Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act, otherwise referred to as the 15-week abortion ban.

The petition asked the Supreme Court to clarify its jurisprudence on abortion to allow states like Mississippi to enact laws that further their “legitimate interests in protecting maternal health, safeguarding unborn babies, and promoting respect for innocent and vulnerable life,” as stated by AG Fitch.

CBS reporter Kate Smith, who covers abortion access stories, picked up on the filing and tweeted that this action could provide the mechanism for the Supreme Court to revisit Roe v Wade.

“If the Supreme Court were to look at Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, it would give them an opportunity to revisit Roe v Wade, given that a 15-week abortion ban is a pre-viability ban,” Smith wrote.

You can read the new brief filed by AG Fitch below.

SCOTUS brief by AG Fitch by yallpolitics on Scribd