When Amy Coney Barrett was confirmed as Donald Trump’s third appointee to the Supreme Court, Roe v. Wade’s fate was sealed. The only remaining question was the execution method. Last Wednesday’s oral arguments about the constitutionality of Mississippi’s ban on all abortions after 15 weeks strongly suggest that Roe will be dispensed with with a quick shot to the head next June. Justices Barrett and Kavanaugh showed strikingly little interest in the “compromise” solution floated by Chief Justice John Roberts, and the five votes to overrule Roe outright appear to be there.
Anticipating the backlash this will produce, Kavanaugh suggested that overruling Roe was in fact a moderate compromise: The Court would be remaining “scrupulously neutral on the question of abortion.” This will be one of the lines Republicans use to downplay the aftereffects of ending the constitutional right, claiming that it will simply return the issue to “various state legislatures working their will.” But these moderate-sounding claims are deeply misleading. The democratic process in many respects is stacked against supporters of reproductive freedom, and congressional Republicans are unlikely to simply “send the issue back to the states” but will probably act to restrict or even ban abortion the next time they get control of the federal government.
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