“Will This Institution Survive the Stench?”: Gutting Abortion Rights Could Damage the Supreme Court’s Own Legitimacy

If there is a white whale in the conservative legal movement, an animating force behind the rise of the Federalist Society and a host of Supreme Court nomination fights, it is the prospect of a future without Roe v. Wade. For nearly 50 years, that landmark decision has enshrined into law a woman’s right to end her pregnancy, which the Supreme Court reaffirmed must be respected without state interference before the line of fetal viability, around 23 or 24 weeks. That principle—Roe’s “essential holding,” in the words of the court—remains broadly popular with the general public, even as the ruling’s… Read Full Article