The Supreme Court is preparing for a new term beginning Monday, which is likely to result in the most significant ruling on abortion in decades, as well as an anticipated ruling on the issue of carrying guns.
The high Court will also rule over public funding for religious education, any may dive back into considering a student's race in college admissions.
As reported by NBC News, the Court announced last May that it would consider a challenge to the Mississippi law that banned most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Now, since then, Texas has passed an even stricter law banning abortions after just six weeks.
The Mississippi case challenges the Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling, which prohibited a ban on abortion before fetal viability, which is generally considered to be 23 to 24 weeks into pregnancy.
A federal judge blocked the enforcement of Mississippi’s new law, saying the state chose to "pass a law it knew was unconstitutional to enforce a decades-long campaign" against Roe v. Wade. The 5th U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed the ruling, so the state appealed to the Supreme Court.
The right to carry a gun has long been a debate in Congress, and the issue will now head to the Supreme Court after the justices avoided it since 2008.
The Court will hear a challenge to a New York law which allows residents to carry concealed guns only if they can demonstrate special needs beyond the general desire for self-protection.
Federal courts have split over the meaning of the Second Amendment’s declaration of the right to keep “and bear” arms. A Supreme Court ruling would clarify how much states can restrict gun ownership without violating the Second Amendment.
