RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Virginia’s new legal professional common has altered the state’s place on a carefully watched abortion case earlier than the U.S. Supreme Courtroom, along with his workplace now saying it needs to be left to particular person states to determine on restrictions.
When Democrat Mark Herring was legal professional common, the state joined greater than 20 different states in a short filed in September urging the justices to declare unconstitutional Mississippi’s legislation banning abortions after 15 weeks of being pregnant. Herring was a robust supporter of abortion rights.
Republican Jason Miyares, an abortion opponent, defeated Herring in November and took workplace final weekend.
Citing “the change in administration,” Miyares “has reconsidered Virginia’s place on this case,” Virginia Solicitor Common Andrew Ferguson wrote Friday in declaring the state not adheres to that friend-of-the-court transient.
“Virginia is now of the view that the Structure is silent on the query of abortion, and that it's due to this fact as much as the folks within the a number of states to find out the authorized standing and regulatory therapy of abortion,“ Ferguson wrote to the clerk of the Supreme Courtroom.
The Supreme Courtroom heard oral arguments within the case final month.
Virginia’s place is now that the 1973 Roe v. Wade determination, which affirmed the constitutional proper to an abortion, and the 1992 Deliberate Parenthood v. Casey case, which reaffirmed Roe however set a brand new commonplace on evaluating restrictions, “had been wrongly determined,” Ferguson added.
The letter was disclosed on the day of the annual March for Life in Washington. Miyares was a part of a Republican sweep of Virginia’s high three workplaces within the fall in a state the place a GOP candidate hadn’t gained a statewide race since 2009.