(WASHINGTON) — The Supreme Court on Wednesday began to hear historic arguments over a Mississippi law that would ban most abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy.

The case, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, asks the justices directly to reconsider the precedent set by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey.

This means that the justices, a majority of whom are conservative, have the real opportunity to lessen the right to an abortion or possibly overturn the landmark case that made abortion a federally protected right nearly half a century ago.

Legal scholars are raising the alarm that if the court should decide to uphold the Mississippi ban, it could clear the way for new restrictions on abortion across the U.S.

ABC News legal analyst Kate Shaw, a professor at Cardozo Law School, told ABC News’ “Start Here” that as many as 30 states would restrict abortions if Roe gets overturned.

“It’s certainly possible that there will be a majority of justices on board to just overturn Roe and Casey and rule that the Constitution doesn’t protect a right to terminate a pregnancy,” Shaw said. That would leave each state to decide for itself, and “a number of states already have laws on the books that go into effect immediately.”

According to a report from The Guttmacher Institute, 21 states have these so-called trigger laws, some of which include bans on abortion after six or eight weeks of pregnancy, effectively banning all abortions. Several other states without trigger laws, according to Shaw, would likely “move very quickly” to prohibit abortion should Roe be overturned.

Shaw said she believes that the court could reach a compromise solution that still would allow Mississippi to enforce its 15-week, and even though that also “would be a dramatic change in the constitutional law of abortion, but that they do that without overturning Roe and Casey, simply suggesting that Roe and Casey undervalued the state’s interest in protecting potential life, and thus that this viability line should be reconsidered.”

Such a ruling could give states more power to restrict abortions, Shaw continued, “but it would not allow them to prohibit or criminalize all abortions.”

This report was featured in the Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021, episode of “Start Here,” ABC News’ daily news podcast.

“Start Here” offers a straightforward look at the day’s top stories in 20 minutes. Listen for free every weekday on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, the ABC News app or wherever you get your podcasts.

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(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden on Wednesday declined to comment on the claim former President Donald Trump’s chief of staff Mark Meadows makes in an upcoming book, according to the Guardian, that Trump had a positive COVID-19 test three days before their first presidential debate.

ABC News Senior White House Correspondent Mary Bruce asked Biden, who was 78 and, like Trump, unvaccinated when they shared the stage in the September debate, if he believes Trump put him at risk of contracting the potentially fatal virus.

Biden paused, and then responded with a smirk, “I don’t think about the former president.”

Later, White House press secretary Jen Psaki took a different tone — slamming Republicans and Trump allies she said had appeared to withhold the positive test result.

“What is not lost on us is that no one should be surprised that currently in Congress, as we’re looking at the government staying open, you have supporters of the former president, supporters of the former president who withheld information, reportedly, about testing positive and appeared apparently at a debate, also held events at the White House, reportedly, with military veterans and military families,” she said.

She said the White House did not know about Meadows’ claim prior to the story breaking in The Guardian.

The nation’s top infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who notably was the target of Trump’s ire for his messaging surrounding the virus, also said he “certainly was not aware of his test positivity or negativity” when ABC News Correspondent Karen Travers asked him about the revelation at the afternoon White House briefing.

“I’m not going to specifically talk about who put who at risk, but I would say, as I’ve said, not only from an individual but for everybody, that if you test positive, you should be quarantining yourself,” he said.

The Guardian , which says it obtained a copy of Meadows’ upcoming book, reported that Trump test positive on Sept. 26, sending shockwaves through the White House, before a second COVID-19 test came back negative, according to the Meadows account.

ABC News has not independently confirmed the book’s contents.

According to the debate rules, each candidate was required “to test negative for the virus within seventy-two hours of the start time” of the Sept. 29 debate in Cleveland, Meadows recalls understanding in the book, according to The Guardian.

But Trump, then 74, was determined to go to the debate and face Biden, regardless, according to the account.

“Nothing was going to stop [Trump] from going out there,” Meadows writes, according to the excerpt in The Guardian.

Trump’s reportedly positive, then negative, in tests were taken on the same day of the now-infamous packed Rose Garden ceremony, described as a “superspreader event,” in which Trump announced he would nominate now-Justice Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.

At least 11 guests, including press secretary Kellyanne Conway, former New Jersey GOP Gov. Chris Christie, Republican Sens. Mike Lee of Utah and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, and University of Notre Dame President John Jenkins, tested positive afterward.

Meadows called Trump, who was on Air Force One at the time, with news of the positive test before calling back that he tested negative after another screening.

Trump went on to headline a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania, that evening, and held public events at the White House in the coming days.

Meadows has dodged questions surrounding Trump and COVID-19 since the president tweeted in the early hours of Oct. 2 that he tested positive, at the time, repeatedly refused to tell reporters when he had last tested negative.

Two senior Trump officials later told ABC News Chief Washington Correspondent Jon Karl they had heard Trump tested positive before the debate but Meadows told Karl several months ago that was not true.

“Some people say you first got — you got an initial positive test even before the debate. Is that true or is that not true?” Karl asked Trump in a March 18 interview at Mar-a-Lago for his new book, “Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show.”

“No,” Trump responded. “No, that’s not true.”

In a new statement on Wednesday, the former president called the reporting “fake news” — but did not flat out deny that he had tested positive before the debate.

“The story of me having COVID prior to, or during, the first debate is Fake News. In fact, a test revealed that I did not have COVID prior to the debate,” he said.

Notably, Meadows did not write explicitly, according to The Guardian excerpts, that Trump had COVID-19 before the debate but that he had an initial positive test that was followed by a more reliable negative test.

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(WASHINGTON) — The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 Capitol attack on Wednesday will recommend the full House hold former Trump Justice Department official Jeffrey Clark in contempt for refusing to cooperate with their investigation in the latest effort to ratchet up pressure on the former president’s aides and allies.

The move comes as Mark Meadows, former President Donald Trump’s fourth and final chief of staff, agreed to cooperate with the panel, turning over thousands of pages of records and agreeing to appear for a deposition in the coming days.

The full chamber could vote to hold Clark, the former acting head of the Justice Department’s civil division, in contempt as soon as Thursday, making him the second Trump associate after Steve Bannon to be reprimanded by Congress for refusing to cooperate with the investigation.

After a House vote, the Justice Department would determine whether to prosecute Clark as it has Bannon, who was charged with two counts of contempt of Congress for spurning the panel’s subpoena.

Bannon has pleaded not guilty and faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine for each charge.

Unlike Bannon, Clark appeared before the committee with his attorney on Nov. 5, in response to a subpoena for records and testimony.

But he left after 90 minutes, after refusing to answer any questions, citing claims of executive privilege, which the committee has disputed, and Trump’s ongoing legal challenge to the panel’s inquiry.

Clark declined to answer direct questions about his knowledge of Georgia election law and his conversations with members of Congress, both of which committee members argued would not be covered by any claims of executive privilege.

The committee also sought to question him about Trump’s efforts to get the Justice Department to investigate baseless claims of election fraud.

Ahead of the Capitol riot, Clark played a prominent role advancing Trump’s efforts to challenge the election results inside his administration. He circulated a draft letter inside the Justice Department to urge Georgia’s governor and top Georgia officials to convene the state legislature to investigate voter fraud claims.

On Tuesday, committee members spent four hours interviewing Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a source familiar with the interview confirmed to ABC News.

Raffensberger was the target of a pressure campaign from then-President Trump and his aides and allies last year over the results of the presidential election in Georgia. Joe Biden was the first Democrat to carry the state in a presidential election in nearly three decades.

ABC News’ Alex Mallin, Katherine Faulders and Ben Siegel contributed to this report.

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(ATLANTA) — Stacy Abrams will be back on the campaign trail in a second bid for governor of Georgia, setting the stage for a possible rematch with GOP Gov. Brian Kemp whom she lost to in 2018.

Abrams, hoping to become the nation’s first Black chief state executive, made her campaign announcement Wednesday on Twitter.

“I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power,” Abrams said in an announcement video.

I’m running for Governor because opportunity in our state shouldn’t be determined by zip code, background or access to power. #gapol

Be a founding donor to my campaign:https://t.co/gk2lmBINfW pic.twitter.com/z14wUlo8ls

— Stacey Abrams (@staceyabrams) December 1, 2021

In 2018, she ran a closely-watched race for governor against Kemp, but lost by almost 2 points.

Following the loss, Abrams continued to gain notoriety as she advocated for voting rights legislation. She launched the Fair Fight voter protection organization, which is credited with helping Joe Biden win Georgia in 2020, as well as Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff win the state’s two Senate seats.

“We believe in this place and our folks who deserve to be seen and heard and have a voice because in the end, we are one GA.”

Abrams highlighted the work she’s accomplished since leaving the campaign trail in an announcement video that shows Abrams at community events and features various scenes of Georgians at work. I’ve worked to do my part to help families make it through paying off medical debt for 68,000 Georgians expanding access to vaccines, bringing supplies to overwhelmed food banks, lending a hand across our state, especially in rural Georgia,” she said.

Kemp may face a Republican primary challenge.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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