Pence: Supreme Court Has Chance to 'Right' a 'Historic Wrong' and Overturn Roe

The U.S. Supreme Court is facing a landmark opportunity to right the "historic wrong" of Roe v. Wade when it issues a decision in the much-publicized case involving Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, former Vice President Mike Pence said Tuesday. 

"Previously, the court has justified abortion on the grounds that it was essential to the stability of American society," Pence said in remarks at the National Press Club in Washington. "But the truth is nothing has been more destabilizing in our society for the last 50 years than legalized abortion on demand."

Pence delivered his speech one day before the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case challenging the Mississippi law, which prohibits abortion after the 15th week of a woman's term except in cases of medical emergencies and fetal abnormality. An opinion is expected next year.

The state of Mississippi is asking the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, the 1973 decision that legalized abortion nationwide.

Pence said he supports the overturning of Roe.

"I believe it's no coincidence that the last half-century has seen a persistent rise in family instability, single-parent households, a decline in family formation, an increase in unplanned pregnancies and an explosion of sexually transmitted diseases," he said. "And abortion is even being used increasingly as a tool of eugenics for the elimination of children of the so-called wrong sex or race and those suffering disability. Today, more than two-thirds of all babies with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted in their mother's womb."

Roe, he said, has led to the abortion of "62 million children in the United States."

"In other words, nearly 20 percent of the U.S. population is gone. Lives of incalculable promise were ended before they were born," he said. "The court's misguided decision in Roe vs. Wade has inflicted a tragedy not only on our nation, but on humanity, that's hard to fathom. Its scale is unprecedented in the history of mankind."

Pence quoted a study by the Charlotte Lozier Institute that found that 47 out of 50 European countries limit elective abortion to 15 weeks or earlier.

"When it comes to abortion policy, America has more in common with China and North Korea than it does with Western nations of Europe," Pence said. "By upholding Mississippi's law, the Supreme Court can move America away from the radical fringe and squarely back into the mainstream of Western thought and jurisprudence."

Roe's days as an enforceable legal opinion, Pence said, could be numbered.

"There is hope on the horizon that the days of Roe v. Wade are coming to an end," Pence said. "Every serious legal scholar in America knows that the Roe decision was manufactured out of whole cloth to achieve a predetermined political and ideological goal. Even the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once wrote that the court's decision in Roe vs. Wade was quote, 'heavy-handed judicial intervention that was difficult to justify.' Now, our Supreme Court has a chance to right that historic wrong once and for all."