(CNSNews.com) -- When asked if Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was right to refer to an unborn baby as a “baby” during the oral argument for Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said he was not familiar with the case and added that you might need a medical dictionary to “determine when something is called a baby.”
However, the senator also stressed that, “Life begins at conception.”
At the Capitol on Tuesday, CNSNews.com asked Sen. Romney, “In oral arguments, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, Biden Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar referred to an unborn baby as a ‘baby’ -- was she right?”
The senator said, “I’m not familiar with the case and I’m not familiar with the circumstances, but I guess you’d have to look at a medical dictionary to determine when something is called a baby.”
“But there’s no question whether an unborn baby or fetus is -- life and life begins at conception.”
On December 1, 2021, at the U.S. Supreme Court, President Joe Biden’s solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, said to Justice Clarence Thomas that this right to abortion is “so fundamental.”
She added, "The right is grounded in the liberty component of the Fourteenth Amendment, Justice Thomas, "but I think it promotes interest in autonomy, bodily integrity, liberty, and equality. And I do think that it is specifically the right to abortion here, the right of a woman to be able to control, without the state forcing her to continue a pregnancy, whether to carry that baby to term."
Justice Thomas then asked for clarification, to be more specific about the right that was being argued. “I understand we’re talking about abortion here,” he stated. “What specifically is the right we’re talking about?”
Prelogar told the justice, “It’s the right of a woman prior to viability to control whether to continue with the pregnancy, yes.”
The Dobbs v, Jackson Women’s Health Organization case deals with a Mississippi law that bans nearly all abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy. Under Roe v. Wade, states may restrict abortions after 24 weeks, which is considered the age of viability.
Pro-life supporters are hoping that through this case the Mississippi law will be upheld, which would upend Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v Casey, and essentially return abortion law back to the states.
The high court is expected to issue its ruling in June.