In what is turning out to be a hopeful turn of events, the Supreme Court seems poised to not only uphold Mississippi’s 15-week abortion ban, based on the conversation and questioning that occurred Wednesday as the Justices heard arguments from both sides regarding the controversial law, but in what will prove to be the most important abortion case in decades, they seem open to overturning Roe v. Wade.
With the courts conservatives having a 5-4 advantage ( we don’t consider John Roberts a conservative) most seemed amenable to letting the 15-week ban stand but were divided on whether or not they should just pull the trigger and overrule Roe entirely.
Based on the day’s events, Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas, and Neil M. Gorsuch are open to overruling Roe entirely, Justice Roberts want to stick with the narrow decision of 15 weeks, and Brett M. Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett did not say much, but hinted that they are not in favor of stopping at 15 weeks, and would side with the conservatives.
Kavanaugh is seen as the main swing vote, as during his confirmation hearing he frequently argued that his judicial policy was that precedents should not be overturned, and yet during this hearing, he had the opposite approach, citing Brown v. Board of Education which outlawed “separate but equal” education as a precedent that needed to be overturned, much to the chagrin of seething liberals
Should Roe be overturned, it would give the states the right to ban abortion altogether if they desired, and would trigger nearly 20 state laws already on the books to ban abortion in the event of this decision.
As far as when a decision may come- it likely won’t arrive until the summer, nearly 6 months away. Lifesite News explains
The justices will cast tentative votes at a private conference in the coming days. The senior justice in the majority will then assign the majority opinion to a colleague or, just as likely, keep it. Draft opinions, almost certainly including concurrences and dissents, will be prepared and exchanged.
On average, it takes the court about three months after an argument to issue a decision. But the decision in the abortion case is not expected until late June or early July, when major rulings tend to arrive whether they were argued relatively early in the court’s term, as this one was, or in the court’s final argument session, in April.
