Supreme Court Conservative Majority Takes First Abortion Case: What’s at Stake

The U.S. Supreme Court handed down four decisions this morning, but the big headliner was an abortion case the Court agreed to hear in the fall. While that case appears unlikely to settle the 48-year war over the constitutional status of abortion, it offers the first opportunity to witness the 6–3 majority of George W. Bush and Donald Trump appointees in action on the abortion issue. And because the case involves a direct ban on some abortions, rather than a regulation, it potentially puts the entire edifice of Roe v. Wade in the crosshairs.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is one of three new cases the Court took this morning for next term, all of which will probably be argued in the fall and decided some time in the spring of 2022 (the other two involved arbitration awards and habeas corpus review of criminal convictions). Dobbs could be the Court’s most momentous abortion case since at least Gonzales v. Carhart (the last partial-birth-abortion decision) in 2007, and maybe since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.

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Dan McLaughlin

Dan McLaughlin is a senior writer at National Review Online and a fellow at National Review Institute.

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The U.S. Supreme Court handed down four decisions this morning, but the big headliner was an abortion case the Court agreed to hear in the fall. While that case appears unlikely to settle the 48-year war over the constitutional status of abortion, it offers the first opportunity to witness the 6–3 majority of George W. Bush and Donald Trump appointees in action on the abortion issue. And because the case involves a direct ban on some abortions, rather than a regulation, it potentially puts the entire edifice of Roe v. Wade in the crosshairs.

Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is one of three new cases the Court took this morning for next term, all of which will probably be argued in the fall and decided some time in the spring of 2022 (the other two involved arbitration awards and habeas corpus review of criminal convictions). Dobbs could be the Court’s most momentous abortion case since at least Gonzales v. Carhart (the last partial-birth-abortion decision) in 2007, and maybe since Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.