Around a dozen Republican-controlled states have so-called trigger laws in place that would make abortion illegal almost immediately if the Supreme Court was to overturnRoe.
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In Texas,a state of almost 30 million people,RepublicanGovernor Greg Abbott recently signed into law a bill that says nearly all abortions would become illegal in the state 30 days after Roe is overturned.
Doctors who performed abortions after that point in Texas could then be sentenced to life in prison.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh,appointed by Trump in 2018,attracted much attention by citing a list of cases in which the Supreme Court had overturned long-held precedents.
He said perhaps it was best for the court to be “neutral” on issues on which the constitution is silent.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor,appointed to the court by Barack Obama,said overturningRoe would deepen the sense among the public that the justices were acting as political figures rather than applying the law impartially.
“Will this institution survive the stench this creates in the public perception,that the constitution and its reading are just political acts?” Sotomayor asked. “If people believe this is all politics,how will we survive? How will this court survive?”
The Supreme Court is expected to hand down its decision in June next year,raising the likelihood that abortion rights will be one of the dominant issues during the November midterm elections.
Chief Justice John Roberts,appointed to the court by George W Bush,appeared most interested in a narrow ruling that would uphold the Mississippi law,but not explicitly overruleRoe.
“That may be what they’re asking for,but the thing at issue before us today is 15 weeks,” Roberts said.
Samuel Alito,also appointed by Bush,disagreed,saying that “the only real options we have” are to re-affirm theRoe decision or to overrule it.
An ABC News-Washington Post poll last month found that 60 per cent of Americans believedRoe should be upheld,while 27 per cent said it should be overturned.