Who Is Scott Stewart, the Lawyer Representing Missouri in Abortion Case?

Politics|Scott Stewart, the lawyer representing Mississippi, was astatine the halfway of a 2017 termination controversy.

When a pregnant, undocumented 17-year-old staying successful a national exile structure successful Texas sought an termination successful 2017, it was the occupation of Scott Stewart, past a Department of Justice lawyer, to assistance support the ultimatum issued by the Trump administration: spell done with the gestation — oregon permission the country.

The miss had obtained a tribunal bid allowing her to person the procedure, but the authorities was preventing her from leaving the structure for the appointment. That decision, Mr. Stewart argued, did not make an undue load connected the minor. “She tin get alleviation with voluntary departure,” helium argued.

A national judge, declaring herself “astounded” by the argument, disagreed and ordered the authorities to allow the insignificant to spell done with the abortion.

Mr. Stewart present finds himself erstwhile again astatine the halfway of a high-profile termination case, 1 that whitethorn pb to 1 of the astir consequential rulings connected reproductive rights successful decades.

Mr. Stewart, who was appointed the solicitor wide for Mississippi successful February, connected Wednesday volition support the state’s instrumentality prohibiting abortions aft 15 weeks of gestation and straight situation Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, some of which affirmed the close to termination earlier fetal viability.

“Roe and Casey are egregiously wrong,” helium wrote successful the court brief. “The decision that termination is simply a law close has nary ground successful text, structure, history, oregon tradition.”

Mr. Stewart graduated from Princeton University and studied instrumentality astatine Stanford. He clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas connected the Supreme Court and Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. He served successful the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel and worked successful backstage signifier arsenic a litigator. As lawman adjunct lawyer wide successful the Civil Division of the Justice Department, helium presented much than 40 oral arguments successful the national courts of appeals.