Virginia’s new Republican attorney general is urging the Supreme Court to overturn its 49-year-old ruling in Roe v. Wade and return the regulation of abortion to the states, as observers await the court’s imminent decision in a challenge to a Mississippi abortion law. Against this backdrop, the Supreme Court has denied requests to stay the Texas “heartbeat” law which bans abortions after six weeks of gestation and crowdsources enforcement to members of the public. Litigation is continuing in the case involving Whole Woman’s Health, which runs abortion clinics in Texas and five other states.Whole Woman’s Health sued to overturn the new Texas law, arguing that it violates Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), in which the Supreme Court discovered a constitutionally protected right to obtain an abortion before the fetus is viable, at about the 24-week mark. The chain of clinics also challenged the novel enforcement mechanism …