Demonstrators for and against abortion rights demonstrate outside the U.S. Supreme Court on the day of arguments in the Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt case. March 2, 2016. Photo by Diego M. Radzinschi/ALM.
Over the past week, litigators, court watchers and lawmakers have warned that the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 ruling allowing Texas’ six-week abortion ban to take effect could have far-reaching and potentially dangerous consequences moving forward—and not just in abortion cases.
The Driver:
As Law.com’s Jacqueline Thomsen recently reported, Republican-controlled state legislatures two years ago began passing a new wave of abortion restrictions with an apparent goal of getting the issue of Roe v. Wade before the conservative-controlled court. That came to fruition in May, when the justices agreed to review the constitutionality of state laws that ban abortions before the third trimester of a pregnancy in the case Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. But before it could even hear arguments in that case, it allowed a Texas state law that violates Roe and was signed just months ago, to stay in place.
