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<ul class="summary-list"><li>The Supreme Court uses a principle called "<keyword id="14283231" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="stare-decisis" source="Orion">stare decisis</keyword>" to respect precedent.</li><li>The <keyword id="13806705" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="dobbs-v-jackson" source="Orion">Dobbs v. Jackson</keyword> majority decision takes more than 25 pages to argue it doesn't protect Roe v. Wade.</li></ul>When US Senators questioned <keyword id="12073999" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="samuel-alito" source="Orion">Samuel Alito</keyword> at his confirmation hearing in 2006, the now-Supreme Court Justice, author of Friday's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, hinted that the landmark 1973 <keyword id="11901426" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="abortion" source="Orion">abortion</keyword> ruling was an "important precedent.""It is a precedent that has now been on the books for several decades," <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096108319/roe-v-wade-alito-conservative-justices-confirmation-hearings">Alito said</a>. "It has been challenged. It has been reaffirmed."At the same hearing, he talked about <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis">the principle of "stare decisis,"</a> where Supreme Court justices <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/scotus-justices-roe-wade-abortion.html">respect the precedents set by previous decisions</a> in making their rulings. He stopped short of calling it settled law, noting that Roe v. Wade, which established a nationwide right to abortion, was "involved in litigation now at all levels."In <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-abortion-decision-final-ruling-scotus-roe-v-wade-2022-6">Friday's majority opinion for Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization</a>, Alito wrote that the Roe v. Wade decision was "on a collision course with the Constitution from the day it was decided," comparing it to the Supreme Court decision that upheld racial segregation laws. "Stare decisis is not an inexorable command," he wrote in the majority opinion, and when properly applied, meant that Roe should be overturned, not upheld."Precedents should be respected, but sometimes the Court errs, and occasionally the Court issues an important decision that is egregiously wrong," Alito wrote. "When that happens, stare decisis is not a straitjacket."<h2>Alito argued that Roe v. Wade was already on thin legal ice</h2>That the right-wing Supreme Court majority would overturn a 50-year precedent many Americans took for granted raises questions of how far they'd go to overturn other cases that have become priorities for right-wing activists.Justice Clarence Thomas, <a style="font-size: 15px;" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/justice-thomas-said-the-court-should-reconsider-rulings-on-same-sex-marriage-2022-6">in a concurring opinion</a>, said the court should "reconsider" rulings that protect contraception access and same-sex marriage. Like Roe v. Wade, those decisions were also based on privacy rights under the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.<a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/19-1392_6j37.pdf">Alito's opinion</a> spends more than 25 pages explaining why he believes Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, a later landmark Supreme Court decision that upheld Roe, should not be protected under the principle of stare decisis. In his view, those earlier decisions were poorly reasoned, were based on misreadings of history, and clashed with other parts of the law. He says any "fear that our decision will imperil" rights to contraception access, same-sex marriage, and sex with members of the same sex were "unfounded."<div type="image" title="supreme court roe v wade" height="974" width="1298" msid="92445370" hostid="261" sizebytes="44420"></div>Jennifer Mascott — a former clerk for Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, who both signed onto Alito's opinion — told Insider that the majority of justices believed the precedents set by Roe simply weren't workable."If a past decision was egregiously wrong and its reasoning is causing there to then be mistakes stretched beyond the opinion and cause other areas of the law to become distorted, then that's yet another reason to get it off the books, so that it doesn't continue to distort other areas of law," Mascott, now a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School, told Insider. "And so the Court finds all of those factors here."Abortion rights have been defined by shifting legal rationales over time, with Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey each offering different regulatory rubrics.Those changes — and other tweaks over the past 50 years — indicated Roe v. Wade wasn't a good candidate for protection under the principles of stare decisis, Mascott said."The fact that it has to keep changing its justification suggests maybe there wasn't a clear constitutional basis for the right in first place," Mascott said. "The Court today is not just directly overruling Roe — there have been decades of shifts and changes in the abortion framework and the case law."<h2>Liberal justices said stare decisis should include considering women's experiences</h2>In overturning Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Friday's decision ends most nationwide abortion protections and now leaves them up to the states.In their dissent, the three Supreme Court justices nominated by Democrats said those earlier decisions should be upheld, and that the majority had incorrectly applied the principles of stare decisis. They wrote that the Supreme Court should overturn earlier precedents only upon changes in legal doctrine, when the earlier decisions were only a few years old and didn't have the chance to set many precedents, or when factual changes make the earlier decisions obsolete."None of those factors apply here: Nothing — and in particular, no significant legal or factual change — supports overturning a half-century of settled law giving women control over their reproductive lives," Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan wrote.<div type="image" title="elana kagan samuel alito" height="1666" width="2223" msid="92445373" hostid="261" sizebytes="71432"></div>Instead, they wrote, the majority only overruled Roe and Casey because of former President Donald Trump's right-wing appointees."The Court reverses course today for one reason and one reason only: because the composition of this Court has changed," they wrote.In taking account of the precedent set by Roe v. Wade, the liberal justices talked about the practical effects it had on people's lives. Linda McClain, a professor of gender and legal theory at Boston University, said it was a "vast gulf" with the near-absence of any such discussion over the subject in the majority opinion."It's not only part of the fabric of our constitutional rights, but it's part of the fabric of American society," McClain said. "That there's been this expanding understanding of women's status in society, and that it is partly bound up with reproductive self-determination."There is almost no discussion in the majority opinion, McClain said, about how women live their lives and the "toll" a pregnancy — viable or not — can take on the body. Friday's decision leaves it up to individual states. "It's still the case that many pregnancies are unplanned, there's complications from pregnancy, and childbirth can be dangerous to women," she said. "There was just a total absence of focus on women in the majority opinion."

Justice Samuel Alito, the architect of overturning Roe v. Wade, told senators he viewed the abortion rights landmark as 'important precedent.' Now he says 'stare decisis' doesn't protect it.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Supreme Court overturns Chevron doctrine, curtailing federal regulatory power.</li><li>Chevron doctrine gave federal agencies leeway to interpret ambiguous laws like the Clean Air Act.</li></ul>The Supreme Court on Friday overturned a decades-long legal precedent that has empowered the federal government to regulate the environment and other issues, unleashing a potential threat to President Joe Biden's climate policies.The court <a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/22-451_7m58.pdf">overruled the Chevron doctrine</a>, one of the most important principles guiding federal regulation for the past 40 years. It held that when the laws that Congress writes are ambiguous, courts should defer to federal agencies' interpretation, as long as it's reasonable.Now, however, it could be harder for agencies to address a wide range of policy areas, including the environment, health, and labor and employment. Chief Justice John Roberts authored the decision, joined by five conservative justices. The three liberal justices dissented.The ruling comes as President Joe Biden has raced to finalize a flurry of rules to combat climate change. Over the last year, the Environmental Protection Agency has set <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-ev-emissions-rule-labor-unions-auto-industry-2024-3">stricter limits on greenhouse gas emissions from cars</a>, trucks, power plants, and oil and gas infrastructure. The agency for the first time put limits <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/epa-hazardous-forever-chemicals-drinking-water-limits-2024-4">on toxic "forever chemicals,"</a> also known as PFAS, in drinking water. All of those regulations are the targets of lawsuits from Republican-led states, the fossil-fuel industry, or other businesses.Legal analysts widely expected the Supreme Court's decision. The Chevron doctrine has long been a target of business groups and conservatives who argued it allows federal bureaucrats to overstep their authority on issues related not only to the environment but also to broad swaths of the economy, such as workplace safety, telecom, and finance.The Supreme Court's conservative supermajority is similarly skeptical of federal agencies' power, as past rulings have shown.On Thursday, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23a349_0813.pdf">the court put a temporary hold</a> on the EPA's plan to reduce air pollution from power plants and pipelines that blow across state lines while a lawsuit plays out in a lower court. Last year, the Supreme Court significantly narrowed how many wetlands EPA can regulate to keep them clean. In 2022, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-limits-greenhouse-gas-regulations-west-virginia-v-epa-2022-6">the court limited the EPA's ability to regulate carbon emissions</a> from power plants, leading the Biden administration to issue another plan under the Clean Air Act that it hopes can withstand legal challenges.<h2 id="8531e43d-b476-4020-9d67-26599c42e9a5">How did this case end up at the Supreme Court?</h2>The plea to overturn the Chevron doctrine came to the court in two cases — Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo and Relentless Inc. v. Department of Commerce. These cases involved commercial fishermen who opposed fees they had to pay to have federal observers aboard their vessels to prevent overfishing.The lawyers representing the commercial fisherman are from the Cause of Action Institute, a nonprofit group in the libertarian network built by Charles Koch, the petrochemicals billionaire who has advocated for deregulation.They argued the Chevron doctrine injures small businesses and individuals who have little power to influence federal agencies."Today's restoration of the separation of powers is a victory for small, family-run businesses like ours, whether they're involved in fishing, farming, or retail," Bill Bright, the fisherman and plaintiff in the Loper Bright case, said in a statement.Defenders of Chevron argued that a broad swath of health, safety, and environmental regulations protecting the public could be upended if the doctrine were overturned, causing chaos. The doctrine is cited in more than 15,000 court decisions. Chevron also recognizes that agencies are often staffed by people with technical and scientific expertise that judges don't have.<h2 id="2f5434dc-7742-4115-875e-055829b5d1f7">What did the Supreme Court justices say?</h2>Roberts, in his opinion, said Chevron defies the Administrative Procedures Act, which requires courts to decide whether a federal agency acted within its legal authority."Perhaps most fundamentally, Chevron's presumption is misguided because agencies have no special competence in resolving statutory ambiguities. Courts do," Roberts said.He also argued that the decision to overturn Chevron doesn't call into question prior cases that relied on it. Courts that decided agency actions were lawful are still subject to "statutory stare decisis."In her dissent, Justice Elena Kagan countered that abandoning Chevron will make it difficult for policymakers to issue regulations that keep air and water clean, food and drugs safe, and financial markets honest.Kagan added: "Congress knows that it does not — in fact cannot —write perfectly complete regulatory statutes. It knows that those statutes will inevitably contain ambiguities that some other actor will have to resolve, and gaps that some other actor will have to fill. And it would usually prefer that actor to be the responsible agency, not a court."Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson recused herself from Loper Bright because she was involved in the case as a federal appeals court judge.<h2 id="8e1625cc-57cf-4b5d-8a05-6b593601c3d7">What could be the impact on climate policy?</h2>The reversal of Chevron doesn't change EPA's legal obligation under the Clean Air Act to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, which was affirmed in a 2007 Supreme Court decision, legal experts say. Congress in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act also affirmed that power.But the Clean Air Act was written decades ago and left a lot of room for interpretation by EPA. The specific details of the agency's climate regulations may be more legally vulnerable now.At the same time, Biden's EPA hasn't relied on the Chevron doctrine to defend its climate rules because it's been preparing for this very decision from the Supreme Court, said David Doniger, a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council who argued <a target="_blank" href="https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep467/usrep467837/usrep467837.pdf">the original Chevron case</a> on behalf of the group in 1984.Paul DeCamp, an attorney at the Washington, DC-based firm Epstein Becker Green, said the overturning of Chevron creates a lot of uncertainty."There is now a new path to challenging agency action because the heavy thumb on the scale toward agencies as a result of Chevron has been removed," he said.That doesn't mean that most regulations are invalid, he added. He predicted that most federal action would survive because agencies try to stay within their legal boundaries.

The Supreme Court discards Chevron doctrine, unleashing a threat to Biden's climate policies

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Justice <keyword id="14333640" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="elena-kagan" source="Orion">Elena Kagan</keyword> said the "legitimacy" of the <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> hinges on it not appearing partisan.</li><li>She said precedent should be overturned only in extreme cases, following the reversal of Roe v. Wade.</li></ul>Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan said the public is "rightly suspicious" of the Supreme Court if the seating of a new justice can change the meaning of laws — an apparent nod to recent instances in which the bench has overturned longstanding precedence."People are rightly suspicious if one justice leaves the court or dies and another justice takes his or her place and all of sudden the law changes on you," Kagan said while speaking before hundreds of judges and lawyers at a conference on Thursday, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/21/elena-kagan-supreme-court-legitimacy/">The Washington Post</a> reported.Kagan did not mention any specific cases or justices, but the remark echoed <a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22067295/dobbs-dissent.pdf">the dissent she and the other liberal justices issued</a> against the conservative majority's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark ruling that protected abortion rights for nearly 50 years."The majority has overruled Roe and Casey for one and only one reason: because it has always despised them, and now it has the votes to discard them," the justices wrote. "The majority thereby substitutes a rule by judges for the rule of law."During her remarks Thursday, Kagan said the court could maintain legitimacy and a connection with the public by only overturning precedent in extraordinary circumstances. Polls show <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/03/supreme-court-trust/">public trust in the Supreme Court</a> has been declining as recent decisions primarily held by its 6-3 majority have led some to view the institution as partisan.The Supreme Court has <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/13-720">said</a> stare decisis, the legal doctrine that stipulates courts will abide by precedent, "promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process."Doron Kalir, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, told <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/what-does-it-mean-to-overturn-abortion-rights-supreme-court-2022-5">Insider</a> in May that stare decisis ensures to American citizens that the meaning of the law matters and that it will remain consistent — that it won't depend simply on who's sitting on the bench on any given day."If every day the Supreme Court can overrule itself, then you don't know what the law is," Kalir said.Overturning precedent can also increase the public's perception of the Supreme Court as a political body rather than a neutral interpreter of the law."When the law changes, it doesn't look like the Supreme Court. It looks like Congress," he added.Kagan also <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kagan-scotus-legitimacy-lost-due-to-partisan-political-justices-2022-7">shared those concerns</a> in her comments Thursday. "Overall, the way the court retains its legitimacy and fosters public confidence is by acting like a court, is by doing the kind of things that do not seem to people political or partisan, by not behaving as though we are just people with individual political or policy or social preferences," she said, adding: "I'm not talking about any particular decision or any particular series of decisions. But if, over time, the court loses all connection with the public and the public sentiment, that's a dangerous thing for democracy."

Justice Elena Kagan said people are 'rightly suspicious' of the Supreme Court if the law can change whenever a justice dies or resigns

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Attorney General <keyword id="12110961" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="merrick-garland" source="Orion">Merrick Garland</keyword> said the decision would be felt disproportionately by people of color.</li><li>DOJ plans to support federal efforts to protect and advance reproductive freedom, he said.</li></ul>Attorney General Merrick Garland on Friday sharply condemned the <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword>'s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying the justices had dealt a "devastating blow to reproductive freedom in the United States" by eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion.In a prepared statement, Garland stressed that the <keyword id="11897354" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="justice-department" source="Orion">Justice Department</keyword> disagreed with the decision and predicted that it "will have an immediate and irreversible impact on the lives of people across the country.""And it will be greatly disproportionate in its effect – with the greatest burdens felt by people of color and those of limited financial means," he added.Garland's comment came within hours of the Supreme Court overruling Roe v. Wade, eliminating the constitutional right to an abortion after almost a half-century. The decision, in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, is expected to lead to all but total bans on abortion in <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2021/10/26-states-are-certain-or-likely-ban-abortion-without-roe-heres-which-ones-and-why">about half the states</a>.In the immediate aftermath of the ruling, Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reupped their calls for passing legislation to codify abortion rights. Garland on Friday said the Justice Department supports those legislative efforts and emphasized that the Supreme Court's decision would not eliminate the right of states to keep abortion legal within their borders."We recognize that traveling to obtain reproductive care may not be feasible in many circumstances," Garland said. "But under bedrock constitutional principles, women who reside in states that have banned access to comprehensive reproductive care must remain free to seek that care in states where it is legal."Garland similarly said that states cannot limit access to Mifepristone, an FDA-approved medication that is used to bring about an abortion.A former federal appellate judge, Garland also addressed how the Supreme Court had broken with its customary practice of heeding precedent in overturning Roe v. Wade. In "renouncing this fundamental right, which it had repeatedly recognized and reaffirmed, the court has upended the doctrine of stare decisis, a key pillar of the rule of law," he said.Years before his confirmation to lead the Justice Department, Garland was nominated in 2016 to succeed the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the Supreme Court, but Republicans refused to hold confirmation hearings or a vote. Garland then remained in the powerful US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.His confirmation would have flipped a Supreme Court seat from a Republican- to a Democrat-appointed justice.But the Republicans' blockade on his nomination and Donald Trump's election in 2016 led to the conservatives instead expanding their majority on the Supreme Court.In their dissenting opinion, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan attributed the Dodds decision directly to the changed composition of the Supreme Court."The court reverses today for one reason and one reason only: because the composition of this court has changed," they wrote. Referring to the doctrine of heeding past decisions, the justices continued: "Stare decisis, this court has often said, 'contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process' by ensuring that decisions are 'founded in the law rather than in the proclivities of individuals.' Today, the proclivities of individuals rule.""The Court departs from its obligation to faithfully and impartially apply the law," they added. "We dissent."

AG Merrick Garland said the Supreme Court dealt 'a devastating blow' to abortion rights overturning Roe v. Wade

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The 1973 landmark case Roe v. Wade established the constitutional right to an <keyword id="11901426" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortion" source="Orion">abortion</keyword> in the US.</li><li>The <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> appears poised to overturn that decision, a leaked draft opinion indicated.</li></ul>Abortion is a constitutionally protected right in the US and has been since 1973, but a Supreme Court draft opinion leaked last week suggests that could soon change.If the court overturns Roe, as it appears poised to do, abortion will no longer be a federally protected right. Here's what that means.<h2>Before Roe v. Wade</h2>Prior to 1973, abortion rights were not protected by the federal government. States were free to legislate abortion as they pleased, and at one point or another, most did. Laws varied state by state, though most banned abortions.Four states — New York, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii — <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/01/22/charts-how-roe-v-wade-changed-abortion-rights/?variant=95d42e19c24b03e7">legalized abortion</a> in almost all cases before fetus viability, about 24 weeks of pregnancy. Another 13 states allowed abortion in some circumstances. Almost all the rest outlawed abortion, except to save the life of the pregnant woman.<h2>Roe v. Wade: the case that established the constitutional right to an abortion</h2>In 1970, Norma McCorvey, an unmarried pregnant woman in Texas who used the pseudonym "Jane Roe," filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of abortion laws in Texas, which prohibited the procedure except for the purpose of saving the mother's life. The defendant in the case was Henry Wade, the Dallas County district attorney.The lawsuit alleged that Texas' abortion laws violated her right to privacy protected under the Constitution.In 1973, the Supreme Court issued a <a href="https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/410/113/#tab-opinion-1950136">7-2 ruling</a> in favor of Roe that said the Constitution protected the right to an abortion before viability. The court cited the Due Process Clause of the <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiv">14th Amendment</a>, which says, "Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."The court held that a person could choose to have an abortion before the fetus became viable, or could survive outside the womb, estimated to be about 24 weeks after conception.The two dissenting justices criticized the majority opinion, arguing it exceeded the judicial power of the court and took away the power that belonged to state legislatures, arguments that are still levied against Roe v. Wade today."There are all levels of rights, and the highest level of rights is a constitutional right," Doron Kalir, a professor at Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, told Insider. "When the right exists, neither Congress nor the state can challenge that right because it comes straight from the Supreme Court, which is the ultimate arbiter of the Constitution."When the Supreme Court ruled on Roe, it established the constitutional right to an abortion. It made existing state-level abortion bans invalid essentially overnight, and in the 49 years since, it has prevented states from issuing new bans.In <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/505/833">Planned Parenthood v. Casey</a> in 1992, the Supreme Court again upheld the right to an abortion before fetal viability.<h2>Precedent: 'To stand by things decided'</h2><a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis">Stare decisis</a>, which means "to stand by things decided" in Latin, is a legal doctrine stipulating that courts will abide by precedent when making their decisions.The Supreme Court has <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/13-720">said</a> that "stare decisis promotes the evenhanded, predictable, and consistent development of legal principles, fosters reliance on judicial decisions, and contributes to the actual and perceived integrity of the judicial process."Despite the doctrine, the Supreme Court is not bound to follow precedent. But justices usually do, Kalir said, for a number of reasons, including tradition, consistency, and public trust in the court."If every day the Supreme Court can overrule itself, then you don't know what the law is," he said, adding that breaking precedent could also increase the public's perception of the Supreme Court as a political body rather than a neutral interpreter of the law."When the law changes, it doesn't look like the Supreme Court. It looks like Congress," he added.There are well-known examples of the Supreme Court overturning precedent. For instance, the 1896 decision in <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/plessy_v_ferguson_(1896)">Plessy v. Ferguson</a>, which allowed "separate but equal" segregation laws, was overturned by <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/347/483%26gt">Brown v. Board of Education</a> in 1954.But overturning precedent is not something justices take lightly, and they usually do it incrementally rather than in one fell swoop, as could be the case here, the leaked draft opinion indicated.<h2>How the Supreme Court could overturn abortion rights</h2>The draft opinion is for a case from Mississippi, <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/cert/19-1392">Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization</a>.The state of Mississippi passed a law in 2018 that outlawed most abortions in the state after 15 weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for a medical emergency or "a severe fetal abnormality." As Roe v. Wade protected the right to an abortion until 24 weeks, the law was challenged as unconstitutional.Jackson Women's Health Organization, the only abortion clinic in Mississippi, sued to block the law, naming Thomas E. Dobbs, the Mississippi state health officer, in the case. After lower courts ruled in the clinic's favor, Mississippi appealed to the Supreme Court, which agreed to hear the case.The draft opinion, published by <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/02/supreme-court-abortion-draft-opinion-00029473">Politico</a>, showed five justices voting in favor of striking down Roe. The 98-page opinion, written by Justice Samuel Alito, was unflinching in its criticism of the Roe v. Wade decision."Roe was egregiously wrong from the start. Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences," Alito wrote. "We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled," he continued. "It is time to heed the Constitution and return the issue of abortion to the people's elected representatives."Kalir said it's rare for justices to so forcefully condemn a previous court decision, especially one with 50 years of precedent. "Never before has the court overruled itself in such an egregious tone and in such a contemptuous manner," he said.Alito argued that to assert that abortion rights were protected under the concept of "liberty" in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, as the justices did in 1973, was wrong."The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision, including the one on which the defenders of Roe and Casey now chiefly rely — the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment," Alito wrote, adding that the right to an abortion was not part of US history.<h2>What happens next?</h2>The leaked opinion is not final and may change before the final ruling is released this summer, though it appears likely that Roe v. Wade will <a href="https://www.insider.com/what-happens-if-roe-v-wade-is-overturned-2022-5">be overturned</a>.If it is, laws such as Mississippi's can be upheld, including other state abortion laws going through court challenges. There are also 13 states with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trigger-law-states-failed-to-plan-for-end-of-roe-v-wade-2022-5">"trigger laws"</a> that ban or restrict abortions. These laws are designed to take effect when Roe falls.States and the federal government would be free to legislate abortion.Some GOP lawmakers have floated the idea of a federal ban on abortion, while Democrats in Congress are set to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/roe-v-wade-the-bill-democrats-are-pushing-to-protect-abortion-rights-2022-5">vote this week</a> on a bill that would protect abortion rights, though it's all but certain to fail.

What does it mean to overturn abortion rights, and how can the Supreme Court do it?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>VP <keyword id="11939049" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="kamala-harris" source="Orion">Kamala Harris</keyword> said she "never believed" Gorsuch and Kavanaugh on their views of Roe v. Wade.</li><li>"I didn't believe them. It's why I voted against," she told CBS <keyword id="11893589" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="news" source="Orion">News</keyword> correspondent Robert Costa.</li></ul>Vice President Kamala Harris in a Friday interview said that she "never believed" the testimony of Associate Supreme Court Justices <keyword id="12073997" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="neil-gorsuch" source="Orion">Neil Gorsuch</keyword> and <keyword id="12073998" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brett-kavanaugh" source="Orion">Brett Kavanaugh</keyword> when both men were asked about their views on Roe v. Wade during their respective Senate confirmation hearings.<a href="https://twitter.com/FaceTheNation/status/1545530168529375237">During an interview</a> with CBS News correspondent Robert Costa, Harris — who voted against Gorsuch and Kavanaugh as a California senator — spoke of the impact of the court overturning the Roe decision, which in 1973 legalized abortion in the United States and established a constitutional right to the procedure.When the vice president, who previously served on the Judiciary Committee, was asked by Costa if she agreed with some Democrats who have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/impeach-supreme-court-justice-clarence-thomas-ginni-mark-meadows-2022-3">called</a> for Gorsuch and Kavanaugh to be impeached for "misleading" statements regarding Roe and precedent, she spoke of her initial decision to reject both nominations to the high court."I start from the point of experience of having served in the Senate. I never believed them. I didn't believe them. It's why I voted against," she said, while declining to provide a position on the question of impeachment.Harris during the interview said that Democrats didn't previously codify Roe into <keyword id="11899820" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="law" source="Orion">law</keyword> because they "believed" that the issue was "settled" law."I think that, to be very honest with you, I do believe that we should have rightly believed, but we certainly believed that certain issues are just settled," she said. "Certain issues are just settled."Costa pointed out that last month's overturning of the nearly 50-year-old decision proved otherwise."No, that's right," the vice president said. "And that's why I do believe that we are living — sadly — in real unsettled times."Late last month, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to uphold a Mississippi abortion law, while voting 5-4 to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-abortion-decision-final-ruling-scotus-roe-v-wade-2022-6">overturn</a> Roe.Republicans for decades had vigorously sought to turn back the decision, with former President Donald Trump appointing Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett during his term office in an effort to make the conservative goal a reality, with the former justices touching on precedent during their confirmation hearings.All of Trump's appointees voted to overturn Roe, along with Associate Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito."Part of the value of precedent – and it has lots of value, it has value in and of itself, because it is our history and our history has value intrinsically. But it also has an instrumental value in this sense: it adds to the determinacy of law," Gorsuch said during his 2017 hearing."Once a case is settled, that adds to the determinacy of the law. What was once a hotly contested issue is no longer a hotly contested issue. We move forward," he added.Kavanaugh during his hearing was repeatedly questioned about Roe, along with Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 Supreme Court decision which upheld Roe but led to additional restrictions on abortion access."It is important precedent of the Supreme Court that has been reaffirmed many times," he told senators regarding Roe. "It is not as if it is just a run of the mill case that was decided and never been reconsidered, but Casey specifically reconsidered it, applied the stare decisis factors, and decided to reaffirm it. That makes Casey a precedent on precedent." President Joe Biden on Friday <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-sign-executive-order-protecting-abortion-access-2022-7">signed</a> an executive order safeguarding abortion and emergency contraception access, but has also pressed lawmakers to pass a law codifying Roe into law, a tough sell in a 50-50 Senate.Biden last week <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-roe-v-wade-senate-filibuster-carve-out-abortion-rights-2022-6">threw his support</a> behind a special carve-out aimed at passing the legislation with a simple majority, but Democratic Sens. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia have resisted such a move.

Kamala Harris says she 'never believed' Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh regarding their feelings toward Roe v. Wade: 'I voted against'

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="58853" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="US-Supreme-Court">US Supreme Court</keyword> on Monday struck down a <keyword id="60111" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Louisiana">Louisiana</keyword> law requiring clinics that perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at a local hospital within 30 miles.</li><li>The court decided 4-4-1 in June Medical Services v. Russo that the regulation was unconstitutional, with Chief Justice John Roberts concurring in the plurality decision.</li><li>In 2016, the court struck down an almost identical law in Texas, ruling that such restrictions posed an "undue burden" on people's ability to access <keyword id="6357791" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortion">abortion</keyword> services.</li></ul>In a major victory for abortion-access advocates, <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf">the US Supreme Court on Monday struck down</a> a Louisiana law requiring clinics that perform abortions to obtain admitting privileges at local hospitals.Justice Stephen Breyer <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf">wrote the plurality opinion</a>, joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan, with Chief Justice John Roberts concurring. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Brett Kavanaugh, and Neil Gorsuch dissented.The case, <a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/june-medical-services-llc-v-russo/">June Medical Services v. Russo</a>, is the first pertaining to abortion rights that the court has ruled on since Gorsuch and Kavanaugh were confirmed.The court heard arguments in the case in March after the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Louisiana's law in 2019, overturning a US District Court ruling to strike down the law.Louisiana's restriction, passed in 2014 as part of Act 620, required abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a hospital within 30 miles. The law is a type of regulation known as a targeted restriction on abortion providers, <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/state-policy/explore/targeted-regulation-abortion-providers">or "TRAP" law</a>.Such laws place burdensome requirements on clinics that make it more expensive and difficult to operate; <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/gpr/2019/09/us-abortion-rate-continues-drop-once-again-state-abortion-restrictions-are-not-main">many have closed altogether</a>. The regulations can include requiring that a clinic's hallways be a certain width, that procedure rooms be a certain size or temperature, and that clinics be within a certain distance of a hospital.Breyer wrote that the Supreme Court must uphold the District Court's "determination that Louisiana's law poses a 'substantial obstacle' to women seeking an abortion; its determination that the law offers no significant health-related benefits; and its determination that the law consequently imposes an 'undue burden' on a woman's constitutional right to choose to have an abortion."He added: "We also agree with its ultimate legal conclusion that, in light of these findings and our precedents, Act 620 violates the Constitution."In 2016, the Supreme Court struck down a similar Texas law requiring clinics to secure hospital admitting privileges, ruling in <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/15-274">Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt</a> that the law was unconstitutional.In a 5-3 decision, the court ruled that Texas' law violated the precedent set by the 1992 Supreme Court ruling in Casey v. Planned Parenthood that state-level abortion restrictions must have a medical justification and not place an "undue burden" on patients' ability to access abortion services.While Roberts did dissent in Whole Woman's Health, he concurred in Monday's plurality decision, citing stare decisis, the doctrine that says the court should respect and uphold legal precedent."The legal doctrine of stare decisis requires us, absent special circumstances, to treat like cases alike," Roberts <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-1323_c07d.pdf">wrote in his concurring opinion</a>. "The Louisiana law imposes a burden on access to abortion just as severe as that imposed by the Texas law, for the same reasons. Therefore Louisiana's law cannot stand under our precedents."A plurality opinion by the Supreme Court may carry less weight as precedent than a majority opinion, according to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/bryan-garner-interview-english-usage-google-ngrams-big-data-2016-4">Bryan Garner</a>, the editor in chief of "Black's Law Dictionary."An extremely low percentage of abortions result in complications that require hospitalization. A <a href="https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2014/12/121781/major-complication-rate-after-abortion-extremely-low-study-shows">2014 study in California</a> found that out of 54,911 patients, only 0.22% had "major complications" requiring hospitalization, surgery, or a blood transfusion, and just 2% had minor complications within six weeks of the procedure.A <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/1475-6773.13080">2018 study</a> conducted by some of the same researchers at the University of California San Francisco's Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health project examined states that enacted admission-privilege requirements and found that the laws did not affect the way people who had abortions received hospital care.The researchers concluded that admission-privilege laws did not significantly affect hospitalization because "the majority of patients were referred to a hospital before the abortion was attempted and most were for suspected ectopic pregnancy or to perform the abortion in a hospital."The costs that TRAP laws pose to clinics' ability to operate, however, are significant. In Texas, for example, the number of clinics providing abortions <a href="https://liberalarts.utexas.edu/txpep/_files/pdf/Rapidly-Changing-Access-to-Abortion-in-TX-18Jul2014.jpg">fell from 41 in June 2013 to six in September 2014</a> following the law's implementation. After the Whole Woman's Health decision in 2016, the number of Texas providers increased to 21.Abortion-access advocates and experts <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/05/will-supreme-court-let-unnecessary-admitting-privileges-requirements-imperil">have argued</a> that a decision affirming the constitutionality of Louisiana's law would have given several other states the green light to enact similar restrictions.The Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports abortion access, said in May that admission-privilege requirements <a href="https://www.guttmacher.org/article/2020/05/will-supreme-court-let-unnecessary-admitting-privileges-requirements-imperil">were in effect in two states</a>, North Dakota and Missouri.The institute also said that were the Supreme Court to let Louisiana's law stand, it would allow similar TRAP laws to take effect in seven Southern states and make it easier for legislatures in other states to pass such restrictions.Abortion-rights groups celebrated the ruling on Monday but expressed concern about the future of abortion access in America given the narrow nature of Roberts' concurrence."We're relieved that the Louisiana law has been blocked today but we're concerned about tomorrow," Nancy Northup, the president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, said in a statement."With this win, the clinics in Louisiana can stay open to serve the one million women of reproductive age in the state. But the Court's decision could embolden states to pass even more restrictive laws when clarity is needed if abortion rights are to be protected," she said. "Unfortunately, the Court's ruling today will not stop those hell-bent on banning abortion."The ruling was a significant setback for anti-abortion-rights groups and advocates. Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of the Susan B. Anthony List, called the decision "a bitter disappointment.""It demonstrates once again the failure of the Supreme Court to allow the American people to protect the well-being of women from the tentacles of a brutal and profit-seeking abortion industry," she said. "Today's ruling reinforces just how important Supreme Court judges are to advancing the pro-life cause. It is imperative that we re-elect President Trump and our pro-life majority in the U.S. Senate so we can further restore the judiciary, most especially the Supreme Court."

Supreme Court strikes down a Louisiana law requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals

<ul class="summary-list"><li><keyword id="4509737" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="amy-coney-barrett">Amy Coney Barrett</keyword> has served on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit since 2017.</li><li>After a week of reports cast Coney Barrett as the favorite to replace Justice <keyword id="315543" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Ruth-Bader-Ginsburg">Ruth Bader Ginsburg</keyword>, President <keyword id="6354484" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="Donald-Trump">Donald Trump</keyword> on September 26 announced her as his nominee for the seat. </li><li>She was previously considered by President Trump to fill the vacancy on the <keyword id="6354977" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Supreme-Court">Supreme Court</keyword> left by Justice Anthony Kennedy and filled eventually by Justice Brett Kavanaugh.</li><li>Barrett previously clerked for the late Justice Antonin Scalia on the US Supreme Court.</li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-to-pick-judge-amy-coney-barrett-to-replace-ginsburg-on-the-supreme-court-2020-9">President Donald Trump announced Judge Amy Coney Barrett</a> as his nominee for US Supreme Court to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg on Saturday.Justice Ginsburg <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ruth-bader-ginsburg-dies-wish-not-be-replaced-new-president-2020-9">died</a> September 18 at age 87 due to complications from cancer. Shortly after the news broke of her death, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell announced in a statement that whoever Trump nominates to replace her will receive a vote on the Senate floor. Trump previously nominated two men: Justice Neil Gorsuch and Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the court, but said after Ginsburg's death his nominee to replace her would be a woman. Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic and a favored pick of social conservatives, is a professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School and was nominated and confirmed to serve on the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago in 2017.She and her husband have seven children, two of whom are adopted. Coney Barrett visited the White House on Monday, September 21, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/21/politics/donald-trump-supreme-court-pick/index.html">as CNN reported</a> that while Trump's thinking was still evolving, Coney Barrett was his "overwhelming favorite." <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/who-is-amy-coney-barrett-positions-judicial-history-supreme-court-2020-9">Speaking in the White House's Rose Garden announcing the nomination</a>, Trump lauded Barrett as "a woman of unparalleled achievement, towering intellect, sterling credentials, and unyielding loyalty to the Constitution."And at age 48, Coney Barrett would serve on the high court for decades to come if nominated and confirmed. Here's what you need to know about her:<h3>Coney Barrett's early life and education: </h3>Coney Barrett is originally from Metairie, Louisiana, a suburb of New Orleans, where she attended St. Mary's Dominican High School. She later went on to receive a bachelor's degree in English from Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee in 1994 and earned her JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School in 1997, where she graduated summa cum laude. <h3>Who she clerked for</h3>Coney Barrett served in clerkships for Judge Laurence Silberman of the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit and for former Associate Justice Antonin Scalia of the US Supreme Court. Coney Barrett was one of Scalia's favorite clerks, and largely embodies his judicial philosophy of textualism, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/20/us/politics/supreme-court-barrett.html">The New York Times reported. </a><h3>Her positions</h3><ul><li>Previously an associate at law firm Miller, Cassidy, Larocca, and Lewin in Washington, DC</li><li><a href="https://law.nd.edu/directory/amy-barrett/">Professor at Notre Dame Law School</a>, where she's taught constitutional law, the federal courts, and statutory interpretation since 2002. </li></ul><h3>Current court</h3>Appointed by Trump and confirmed by the US Senate to the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago in 2017.<h3>Consideration for Kennedy Supreme Court seat</h3>Barrett had been in the top four candidates under consideration by the president to fill the seat opened by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, which was later filled by current Justice Brett Kavanaugh.In July 2019, <a href="https://www.axios.com/supreme-court-trump-judge-amy-barrett-ruth-bader-ginsburg-11d25276-a92e-4094-8958-eb2d197707c8.html">Jonathan Swan and Sam Baker at Axios reported</a> that Trump had told several people "I'm saving her for Ginsburg," of Coney Barrett, implying that in the event of a vacancy, she would be an immediate contender. For the Kennedy seat, some analysts believed Barrett's staked-out positions on abortion would make it difficult for a number of key Republican senators, specifically Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, to support her.<h3>Rulings and writings on abortion</h3>A devout Catholic, Barrett has been on the bench for a short time, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-amy-barrett-supreme-court-20180709-story.html">but she's written extensively on the subject of abortion</a> in her career, which would likely become a lightning-rod issue in her confirmation proceedings if she were nominated to the high court. In<a href="https://www.scotusblog.com/2018/07/potential-nominee-profile-amy-coney-barrett/"> a law review article published in 1998</a> that Barrett wrote while a third-year law student, she and a co-author argued Catholic judges should be allowed to recuse themselves from certain cases involving abortion or the death penalty. She <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/bench-memos/attack-on-judge-amy-coney-barrett-completely-misfires/">clarified in her 2017 confirmation to the 7th Circuit</a>, however, that the issues she explored in the law review article don't reflect her opinions today. "Would I or could I say, sitting here today, that that article and its every particular reflects how I think about these questions today with, as you say, the benefit of 20 years of experience and also the ability to speak solely in my own voice? No, it would not," she said. Barrett has also said she believes it highly unlikely for the landmark case Roe v. Wade to be overturned, but doesn't see it as a "super-precedent" case, like Marbury v. Madison, that no court would ever overturn.She <a href="http://texaslawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Barrett.pdf">advocated in a 2013 law review article</a> for a more "flexible" application of stare decisis, or the principle of respecting precedent in court cases. Those writings combined with her personal belief that life begins at conception had some critics concerned about what her presence on the court could mean for future abortion rights cases when she was floated for Kennedy's seat in 2018. In her time on the 7th Circuit, Coney Barrett <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-barrett-rulings-factbox/notable-opinions-of-u-s-supreme-court-contender-amy-coney-barrett-idUSKCN26B0XG">has voted in favor of re-hearing challenges</a> to two abortion-related laws: a case challenging parental consent laws for minors seeking an abortion, and a case over an Indiana law that barred abortions for sex or disability and required the burial of fetal remains, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-barrett-rulings-factbox/notable-opinions-of-u-s-supreme-court-contender-amy-coney-barrett-idUSKCN26B0XG">Reuters</a> and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/09/20/amy-coney-barretts-judicial-record-should-alarm-liberals/">the Washington Post</a> noted.

Who is Amy Coney Barrett, the judge Trump nominated to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg?

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The <keyword id="11893011" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="supreme-court" source="Orion">Supreme Court</keyword> on Wednesday will hear the biggest challenge to <keyword id="11901426" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="abortion" source="Orion">abortion</keyword> rights in decades.</li><li>Legal scholars told Insider that Justices <keyword id="12073998" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="brett-kavanaugh" source="Orion">Brett Kavanaugh</keyword> and <keyword id="11922324" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="amy-coney-barrett" source="Orion">Amy Coney Barrett</keyword> are the ones to watch.</li></ul>Mississippi on Wednesday will ask the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade, the law of the land for nearly 50 years. Nine justices will hear arguments on whether to preserve or undo abortion rights, but experts say Americans should pay close attention to two members of the court: Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.Legal scholars anticipate that either one of them could have an outsize impact in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization and determine the fate of reproductive rights in the United States."If we're trying to figure out who's going to cast the deciding vote, it's going to be one of them," Mary Ziegler, a law professor at Florida State University and an abortion historian, told Insider.The closely followed case centers on a 2018 Mississippi law that bans abortions after 15 weeks of <keyword id="6357793" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="pregnancy" source="Orion">pregnancy</keyword>, challenging the standard held in Roe, which declared that states cannot prohibit abortion before roughly 24 weeks. After the law was passed, the state's sole abortion provider, Jackson Women's Health Organization, sued Mississippi, and lower courts struck down the law as unconstitutional.But Thomas Dobbs, state health officer for the Mississippi Department of Health, appealed to the Supreme Court, which is now stacked with a 6-3 conservative majority. The Republican-led state <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/19/19-1392/184703/20210722161332385_19-1392BriefForPetitioners.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">contends</a> that Roe and a subsequent 1992 landmark decision that upheld the ruling, Planned Parenthood v. Casey, are "egregiously wrong" and has urged the Supreme Court to overturn them. The Supreme Court is poised to deliver a ruling on the case by next June, and a combination of guesswork and simple math could leave Kavanaugh and Barrett — both appointed to the bench by former President Donald Trump — holding all the cards, according to legal scholars.<h2>How the numbers stack up</h2>Five votes are required for a majority Supreme Court ruling. The court's three liberals, Justices Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, have long voted to protect abortion rights and are expected to do so again in the Mississippi case. "It's very clear where Justice Kagan, Justice Sotomayor, and Justice Breyer are," I. Glenn Cohen, a professor at Harvard Law School, told Insider. "They are going to vote to strike down the Mississippi law as unconstitutional … They don't want to reverse Roe v. Wade. This has been consistent in their jurisprudence."Of the bench's conservative wing, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito have explicitly disapproved of the court's decades-long precedent. Thomas, often described as the court's most conservative member, said Roe was wrongly decided in the Casey ruling almost 30 years ago."Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are pretty clear from their prior votes that they are on the side of thinking that the right to abortion in the Constitution is wrong. It doesn't exist," Cohen said. "So their votes are pretty set."Justice Neil Gorsuch, whom Trump appointed in 2017 to replace the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, has a sparse judicial record on the issue. But, in his few years on the high court, he's sided with abortion restrictions and leans heavily conservative, leading experts to project that he'll likely be in favor of Mississippi's law.By this calculation, three justices are inclined to leave Roe in place and three justices are open to upending it.<div type="image" title="Chief Justice John Roberts" height="2535" width="5071" msid="88035005" hostid="261"></div>Then comes Chief Justice John Roberts, who leans more toward the center than his conservative colleagues. Still, in 2016, he <a href="https://www.oyez.org/cases/2015/15-274">sided</a> with a Texas law that the court's majority voted against, arguing that it imposed an undue burden on abortion rights. More recently, he ruled against the court's decision to uphold an "unprecedented" <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-considers-texas-anti-abortion-law-2021-11">law</a> in Texas that bans abortion after just six weeks of pregnancy. But Roberts tends to be a believer in stare decisis, a legal principle that translates to sticking with precedent. He is also widely considered an institutionalist, protective of the court's reputation and wary of perceptions that it is partisan or politicized. Legal scholars say it's difficult to predict what side of the Mississippi case he'll land on, but either way, "he's no longer the swing vote" because of Barrett's addition to the court last year, Ziegler told Insider."We'd still be watching for that, essentially to see if he can persuade Kavanaugh and Barrett to come along with him. But he doesn't actually have control. It's more just the possibility that he'll be able to convince his colleagues. He's a lot less powerful than he was," Ziegler said.Roberts could join the liberal justices to block Mississippi's law, but he could still be outvoted 5-4 by the conservative majority, Mark Kende, a professor at Drake University Law School, told Insider. That scenario could be "a little bit of a judicial nightmare" for Roberts, he added. "What gets really interesting," Kende said, is that the crucial vote could then come down to Barrett and Kavanaugh.<h2>Kavanaugh and Barrett on abortion</h2>The possible threat to abortion rights hung over Kavanaugh's and Barrett's confirmation hearings after Trump <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyKVnunDWc0&amp;ab_channel=60Minutes">campaigned</a> in 2016 on picking "pro-life" nominees for the Supreme Court.Democrats scrutinized Kavanaugh for his 2017 <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/the-trump-administrations-policy-blocking-abortion-access-for-immigrant-teens-in-custody-is-back-in-court/2018/09/25/398a4976-c0e0-11e8-90c9-23f963eea204_story.html">decision</a> on the DC federal appeals court to postpone an abortion sought by a 17-year-old immigrant held in federal custody, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/06/us/politics/kavanaugh-leaked-documents.html">a 2003 memo</a> he wrote as a Bush administration lawyer speculating whether all legal scholars agreed that Roe was "settled law of the land."<div type="image" title="donald trump brett kavanaugh" height="2074" width="4148" msid="88035008" hostid="261"></div>Kavanaugh attempted to tread lightly vis a vis abortion during his confirmation hearing, calling Roe "an important precedent of the Supreme Court" that's "been reaffirmed many times," and describing Casey as "precedent on precedent."Once Trump nominated Barrett in September 2020 to succeed the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, abortion-rights supporters criticized her past comments on abortion rights.In 2006, Barrett, then-a law professor at Notre Dame University, signed on to an <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-coney-barrett-signed-ad-by-anti-abortion-group-report-2020-10">advertisement</a> by an anti-abortion group to "oppose abortion on demand and defend the right to life from fertilization to natural death." Ten years later, Barrett <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yjTEdZ81lI&amp;ab_channel=JacksonvilleUniversity">spoke</a> publicly about abortion at an event, saying Roe's "core holding that women have a right to an abortion" isn't likely to change but questions exist about late-term abortions and restrictions on abortion providers. In her confirmation hearing, Barrett was vague about her position on Roe. "All nominees are united in their belief that what they think about a precedent should not bear on how they decide cases," she said at the time."These justices were appointed with the abortion question looming very strongly in the background," Cohen told Insider. "My sense is that it's very much on people's minds as to these justices' legacies, and I'm sure very much on these justices' minds as to their legacies."Barrett has so far only voted once on abortion, when she ruled in favor of keeping Texas' recent six-week ban in place. That case concerns a technical question related to the law's unique mechanism that calls on private citizens rather than state officials to enforce the law. The justices did not review the constitutionality of the anti-abortion law.However, she appeared skeptical of the law <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-considers-texas-anti-abortion-law-2021-11">during the case's arguments</a> earlier this month. Kavanaugh, too, seemed reluctant to embrace Texas' position, although he previously voted to temporarily maintain the law. "There's a loophole that's been exploited here or used here," Kavanaugh said of the Texas law. "It could be free speech rights. It could be free exercise-of-religion rights. It could be Second Amendment rights."Cornell Law School professor Sherry Colb, for her part, said the justices' questioning did not indicate any support for abortion rights and pointed to Kavanaugh's comments as evidence."They were concerned about gun rights and about religious freedom," she said. "It had nothing to do with abortion, and they were simply asking those questions because of how the Texas law was written expressly to avoid judicial review."<div type="image" title="barrett-2" height="2010" width="4020" msid="88035010" hostid="261"></div><h2>'Crystal ball-type speculation'</h2>Despite widespread concern over what their appointments would mean for the Supreme Court, Kavanaugh and Barrett have steered toward the middle in recent rulings. They voted to <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-upholds-affordable-care-act-california-v-texas-2021-6">uphold</a> Obamacare against a GOP-backed challenge. In a religious liberty <a href="https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/20pdf/19-123_g3bi.pdf">ruling</a>, they stopped short of overturning a previous decision that fellow conservatives Alito, Thomas, and Gorsuch argued was necessary. And they also have signaled some hesitancy to move the law quickly, opting for smaller decisions rather than sweeping ones. Kavanaugh and Barrett are "somewhat cautious justices who have indicated at times that they want to go along with Roberts," Kende said, and "have shown some reluctance to go as far, for example, as Alito and Thomas."Consequently, legal scholars are divided on how the two justices might vote in the Mississippi abortion challenge."It's quite clear that Justice Thomas and Justice Alito are of the view that they'll write an opinion that says Roe v. Wade is not good law, it was never good law. There's no constitutional right here," Cohen said. "It's less clear whether Coney Barrett and Kavanaugh are as interested in writing an opinion like that at this stage of their career, but who knows."Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law, said the newest members of the court are likely to follow Roberts' lead on the Mississippi abortion law. He described the court as a 3-3-3 split, made up of liberals Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, conservatives Thomas, Alito, and Gorsuch, and moderates Roberts, Kavanaugh, and Barrett."The three moderates will ride together, altogether. They'll do it jointly," Blackman said, but added that the direction they could vote in remains uncertain."I think they're motivated by things that aren't entirely law and that makes them unpredictable. If this was a question of law, then they'd be overruling in five seconds because they think that Roe is wrong. I think they're affected by other factors that are not law, by public perception, by the court's reputation, by whatever you want to call it," he said.Reading the tea leaves of the Supreme Court is a tricky endeavor, experts said. The justices' judicial backgrounds and their questioning on Wednesday could reveal some of their thinking, but it's more of a "crystal ball-type speculation," according to Kende."Candidly, I think the court is going to divide," he said, warning that "predicting the court is always a bit risky."But for Colb, the votes that Barrett and Kavanaugh will cast are crystal clear."Both of them are opposed to Roe. They won't say it … but there's no mystery," she told Insider. "It's just a question of whether it's going to be 5-4 or 6-3."

Trump's Supreme Court picks Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh could decide the fate of Roe v. Wade

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div></div></div><ul><li>Sen. Susan Collins said Sunday she would not support President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee if they said they would overturn Roe v. Wade.</li><li>Collins said a nominee who would overturn the Constitutional right to abortion "will not be acceptable" and she would see the move as following "an activist agenda".</li><li>She also said she got the president to add names to his list of 25 potential nominees.</li></ul>Sen. Susan Collins of Maine said Sunday she would not support President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee if they said they would overturn Roe v. Wade.Collins, a member of the House Judiciary Committee, told host Martha Raddatz on ABC's "This Week" that the 1973 decision establishing basic grounds for American women's abortion access should be off-limits for Trump's pick."A candidate for this important position who would overturn Roe v. Wade would not be acceptable to me, because that would indicate an activist agenda that I don't want to see a judge have," Collins said. "That would indicate to me a failure to respect precedent."Trump told Fox Business' Maria Bartiromo he <a href="http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/06/29/maria-bartiromo-interviews-president-trump-sunday-morning-futures" target="_blank" rel="noopener">"probably" wouldn't ask a nominee</a> how they would vote on Roe v. Wade, which Collins said he also told her in a meeting last week with other key senators."[Trump] did tell me that he would not be asking that question," Collins said Sunday. "And indeed it would be inappropriate to ask a judge nominee on how they are going to vote in a future case."<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/justice-kennedy-retire-bio-facts-supreme-court-2017-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Justice Anthony Kennedy</a> announced last week he would be <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/justice-kennedy-retires-supreme-court-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">retiring at the end of July</a>. Kennedy was considered a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/justice-kennedy-retires-supreme-court-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">centrist who was a swing vote</a> in a <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/when-justice-anthony-kennedy-sided-with-liberals-on-supreme-court-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">number of controversial cases</a>, including two reaffirming the right to abortion.Trump compiled <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-supreme-court-pick-list-names-2017-11" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a shortlist of 25 potential nominees</a>, and he confirmed last week his next pick would come from it.Collins said she suggested he add some names, and that the White House counsel told her some names have been added."The president should not feel bound by that list," she said, "and instead should seek out recommendations to make sure he gets the best possible person."Collins said she objected to some of the picks on the list, who have "demonstrated a disrespect for the vital principle of <a href="https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stare_decisis" target="_blank" rel="noopener">stare decisis</a>," the legal term for precedent.<h2>Watch some of Collins' comments below:</h2><div></div><div></div><div></div> <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/what-happened-at-the-trump-north-korea-summit-2018-6">Why the North Korea summit mattered even if it was 'mostly a photo op'</a></h3> <div> </div> </div></hr>

Key Republican senator says she got Trump to add names to his Supreme Court shortlist, and that a candidate who will overturn Roe 'will not be acceptable'

<div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">Associated Press/Denis PoroyIn this July 15, 2015 file photo, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy speaks in San Diego.</div></div></div><ul><li>There are some good reasons to think the Supreme Court is unlikely to reverse key gay rights decisions, even with a new, more conservative justice replacing Anthony Kennedy.</li><li>Still, it's good to be prepared, just in case.</li><li>If the Obergefell decision were overturned, dead-letter bans on gay marriage that still exist in state constitutions could suddenly become enforceable again.</li><li>To make sure that doesn't happen, we should repeal those state-level bans now.</li></ul> Supreme Court observers are discussing <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/when-justice-anthony-kennedy-sided-with-liberals-on-supreme-court-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">what 5-4 decisions where Anthony Kennedy</a> was in a liberal majority might be overturned after he is replaced on the court.Perhaps second-most mentioned after the Roe and Casey abortion cases are the key line of cases legalizing gay marriage: Windsor v. United States and Obergefell v. Hodges. Windsor overturned the federal law defining marriage as only between a man and a woman for federal purposes, while Obergefell barred states from restricting marriage to opposite sex couples.The emerging conventional wisdom is that the core holdings in Windsor and Obergefell are likely safe, for now.Because the popularity of marriage equality only keeps rising (<a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/234866/two-three-americans-support-sex-marriage.aspx">67% support in the latest Gallup survey</a>) the court would create an enormous political firestorm around itself if it overturned either decision.So the thinking is that, given Chief Justice John Roberts' respect for precedent, and his cautious instinct to protect the court politically, he's unlikely to join a decision to overturn either case, even though he didn't join them when they were handed down.(BuzzFeed's Chris Geidner had a deep, useful dive on Roberts' <a href="https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/chief-justice-john-roberts-has-changed-a-little-bit-and">turn toward institutional caution back in January</a>.)My guess is that conventional wisdom is correct, though nobody really knows.But I do think some people who express the CW are missing some key points of the analysis - points that strengthen the idea that the court won't want to touch gay marriage, but that also point to some political actions supporters of marriage equality might want to take, just in case.<h2>Overturning Obergefell would instantly restore gay marriage bans in much of the country</h2><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/6-rulings-that-could-be-overturned-by-a-post-kennedy-supreme-court">Previewing possible consequences of a post-Kennedy court</a>, the Washington Examiner editorial board says if Obergefell were overturned, "the most likely outcome is that a few states might stop allowing new same-sex marriages."This is incorrect. The effects of overturning Obergefell would be much broader.There are 30 state constitutions that already contain prohibitions on same-sex marriage. Currently, these provisions are dead letter; they exist, but they can't be enforced because of Obergefell.But if that decision were overturned, at least some of them would become good law again. The exact number would depend on the exact terms of a decision overturning Obergefell and how it would affect same-sex marriage bans that were struck down in cases other than Obergefell. But most likely, same-sex marriage would be instantly prohibited in something like half the country.Some of these bans would be in blue states that would have likely repealed their state constitutional bans on gay marriage if not for Obergefell rendering them moot - think Oregon, Colorado, and Virginia.Because marriage equality has two-thirds support nationally and rising, some states would likely proceed swiftly to repeal their reinstated bans. But they could only move so swiftly - in most states, repeal would involve gathering ballot signatures and then waiting for at least one general election.So, reversing Obergefell wouldn't just restore the option for states to ban gay marriage. It would impose such bans, often in places where they would be very much unwanted by the public. And the Supreme Court would take the blame.<h2>Overturning Obergefell would cause a political crisis and undermine the court's public standing</h2>That overturning Obergefell would cause such a mess is a reason to think the conventional wisdom is right: The court is unlikely to do so.Roberts' votes to keep the Affordable Care Act in place, which drew the ire of so many conservatives, were widely interpreted as a protective move to save the court from the backlash that would have come from intervening in a policy area it didn't absolutely need to.His recent <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/supreme-court-wayfair-internet-sales-tax-decision-good-for-consumers-2018-6" target="_blank" rel="noopener">dissent in Wayfair vs. South Dakota</a> was a paean to the virtue of stare decisis, or leaving old decisions in place, even in an area where he admitted the court had erred in its preceding decisions.It's easy to imagine him looking at the political fallout from reopening the gay marriage issue, grimacing, and deciding the court had better not go there.Still, it's worth being prepared.<h2>Democrats should start a national push to repeal same-sex marriage bans in the states</h2><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image">AP Photo/Pablo Martinez MonsivaisPeople gather in Washington's Lafayette Park to see the White House illuminated with rainbow colors to mark the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling to legalize same-sex marriage, June 26 2015.</div></div></div>There is an obvious way to make sure a future Supreme Court decision doesn't restore the effectiveness of the gay marriage bans that still exist in many state constitutions: Repeal them, and replace them with provisions that say people may marry people of any sex.In most cases, this would require initiative campaigns at the state level, putting state constitutional amendments on ballots for voters to approve - much in the same way most of these amendments got into state constitutions in the first place, at Karl Rove's urging in the mid-2000s.If Obergefell remains in effect, repealing these bans won't actually change public policy. But a national campaign to do so would serve four purposes:<ol><li>Allow states to ensure that marriage equality is not vulnerable to changes in the composition of the Supreme Court, which could become even more conservative if Trump is able to replace a liberal justice and Roberts is not the swing vote.</li><li>Send a public message that states and their residents affirmatively support marriage equality and are not just abiding by a federal edict.</li><li>Energize Democratic voters to turn out to vote for a pro-equality measure, while placing Republican politicians on the wrong side of a wedge issue.</li><li>Raise the salience of judicial nominations for Democratic voters, with a powerful and ongoing reminder that it matters who sits on the Supreme Court, because key rights can be placed at risk when the court's composition changes.</li></ol><h2>Public <keyword id="6356002" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="opinion">opinion</keyword> can be a key asset when protecting a right</h2>For a long time, gay rights <keyword id="6358883" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="politics">politics</keyword> were conducted in an environment where the judiciary was more friendly to gay rights than legislatures or the public.That led to some memorable slogans, like that we shouldn't vote on fundamental rights.But what if times change, and the public becomes much more supportive of gay rights than the judiciary? Ultimately, the placement of our rights in the hands of the courts is a means to the end of protecting those rights. You want your rights handled wherever they are safest.This isn't to say I'm ready to relinquish the protection of the courts. Obergefell is important, I very much want it upheld, and I believe the Supreme Court most likely will continue to do so.Still, if you're going to win the votes, it can be a good time to ask people to start voting. Especially if it's less than certain the courts are going to be there for you.And relatedly, a favorable court decision isn't a reason to stop worrying about public opinion. Rising public support for gay rights and LGBT people is as important as court protections in improving our daily treatment in America, because policy isn't everything and non-discrimination law (even if it existed in all 50 states) can't govern every harmful action that might happen.Winning hearts and minds is important, we've done it, and we should capitalize on that fact.And with regard to some other judicial decisions made vulnerable by changes in the court, it's worth considering why the opinion landscape hasn't moved as favorably as it has on gay rights, and what can be done to change that in the future.More on that soon. <div class="margin-top"> <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/this-compact-vehicle-jack-can-lift-a-car-van-or-truck-in-seconds-2018-6">This compact vehicle jack can lift a car, van, or truck safely in only 10 seconds</a></h3> <div> </div> </div>

You Searched For "stare decisis" and got 11 results

Justice Samuel Alito, the architect of overturning Roe v. Wade, told senators he viewed the abortion rights landmark as 'important precedent.' Now he says 'stare decisis' doesn't protect it.

Jacob Shamsian

The Supreme Court discards Chevron doctrine, unleashing a threat to Biden's climate policies

Catherine Boudreau

Justice Elena Kagan said people are 'rightly suspicious' of the Supreme Court if the law can change whenever a justice dies or resigns

Kelsey Vlamis

AG Merrick Garland said the Supreme Court dealt 'a devastating blow' to abortion rights overturning Roe v. Wade

C. Ryan Barber

What does it mean to overturn abortion rights, and how can the Supreme Court do it?

Kelsey Vlamis

Kamala Harris says she 'never believed' Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh regarding their feelings toward Roe v. Wade: 'I voted against'

John L. Dorman

Supreme Court strikes down a Louisiana law requiring abortion clinics to have admitting privileges at nearby hospitals

Grace Panetta

Who is Amy Coney Barrett, the judge Trump nominated to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg?

Grace Panetta,Walt Hickey

Trump's Supreme Court picks Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh could decide the fate of Roe v. Wade

Oma Seddiq

Key Republican senator says she got Trump to add names to his Supreme Court shortlist, and that a candidate who will overturn Roe 'will not be acceptable'

Ellen Cranley

Some practical thoughts on gay marriage after Anthony Kennedy's retirement

Josh Barro

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