July 22 (UPI) -- Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch announced Thursday that her office asked the Supreme Court to review Roe vs. Wade as part of its fight to defend the state's ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.
The office filed a brief saying the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling failed to settle "the issue of abortion once and for all."
"All it did was establish a special-rules regime for abortion jurisprudence that has left these cases out of step with other court decisions and neutral principles of law applied by the court," Fitch said.
"As a result, state legislatures, and the people they represent, have lacked clarity in passing laws to protect legitimate public interests, and artificial guideposts have stunted important public debate on how we, as a society, care for the dignity of women and their children. It is time for the court to set this right and return this political debate to the political branches of government."
The brief said the only way to reconcile the "competing interests" is to return the matter to legislators, not judges.
The U.S. Supreme Court in May agreed to hear Dobbs vs. Jackson Women's Health Organization, which challenges Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban.
Mississippi's only abortion clinic sued the state after Gov. Phil Bryant signed the ban into law in 2018. It made exceptions for medical emergencies and "severe fetal abnormality," bit not cases of incest or rape.
A federal judge in Mississippi struck down the law in late 2018 and the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that ruling.