Behind the Scenes at the Dismantling of Roe v. Wade

By Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak
Dec. 15, 2023

On Feb. 10 last year, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. showed his eight colleagues how he intended to uproot the constitutional right to abortion.

At 11:16 a.m., his clerk circulated a 98-page draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. After a justice shares an opinion inside the court, other members scrutinize it. Those in the majority can request revisions, sometimes as the price of their votes, sweating sentences or even words.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion.html

5 Takeaways From Inside the Overturning of Roe v. Wade

A Times investigation reveals the behind-the-scenes story of how the Supreme Court abolished the constitutional right to abortion.

By Jodi Kantor and Adam Liptak
Dec. 15, 2023

By the time the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last year, a draft of the ruling had been leaked to the press and the outcome was anticipated. The story behind the decision seemed obvious: The constitutional right to abortion effectively had died with Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose replacement, Amy Coney Barrett, was a favorite of the anti-abortion movement.

But that version is far from complete. The New York Times pieced together the hidden narrative behind this titanic shift in the law, drawing on internal documents, contemporaneous notes and interviews with court insiders who had real-time knowledge of the events.

Continued: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/15/us/supreme-court-dobbs-roe-abortion-takeaways.html

How Ginsburg’s death and Kavanaugh’s maneuvering shaped the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade and abortion rights

By Joan Biskupic, CNN Senior Supreme Court Analyst
Thu March 23, 2023

Editor’s Note: Adapted from “NINE BLACK ROBES: Inside the Supreme Court’s Drive to the Right and Its Historic Consequences,” by Joan Biskupic, to be published April 4 by William Morrow.

Within days of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s memorial service in late September 2020, boxes of her files and other office possessions were moved down to a dark, windowless theater on the Supreme Court’s ground floor, where – before the ongoing pandemic – tourists could watch a film about court operations.

Grieving aides to the justice who’d served 27 years and become a cultural icon known as the “Notorious RBG” sorted through the chambers’ contents there.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/23/politics/supreme-court-abortion-joan-biskupic-nine-black-robes/index.html

Sotomayor felt ‘shell-shocked’ after U.S. Supreme Court’s abortion decision

By Karen Sloan, Reuters
January 4, 2023

SAN DIEGO - Liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor on Wednesday told legal educators she felt a "sense of despair" at the direction taken by the U.S. Supreme Court during its previous term, during which its conservative majority overturned the constitutional right to abortion.

Sotomayor, who has dissented in major cases including the abortion decision as the court's 6-3 conservative majority has become increasingly assertive, described herself as "shell-shocked" and "deeply sad" after that term ended in June.

Continued: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/sotomayor-felt-shell-shocked-after-us-supreme-courts-abortion-decision-2023-01-04/

04.01.2023

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Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization

Supreme Court rejects another attempt to block Texas’ six-week abortion ban

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Thu January 20, 2022

(CNN) Over the furious dissent of three liberal justices, the Supreme Court on Thursday rejected another attempt by abortion providers to block Texas' six-week abortion ban.

The court's order is the latest setback for providers who are trying to revive challenges to the law five months after it was allowed to go into effect, bringing a halt to most abortions in the country's second-largest state.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/20/politics/abortion-texas-sb8-supreme-court/index.html

20.01.2022

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Elena Kagan

Justice Sonia Sotomayor

With Roe in question, justices dig into private debate

By MARK SHERMAN and JESSICA GRESKO, Associated Press
Dec 2, 2021

WASHINGTON (AP) — Historic Supreme Court arguments over abortion behind them, the justices soon will begin the work of crafting a decision that could dramatically limit abortion rights in the United States.

They will meet in private before the week ends and take an initial vote on whether to uphold Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy. But it will be months before a decision is issued.

Continued: https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-health-united-states-mississippi-65751e1b9ca7d34f1458ffe9729f82b2

With hundreds of demonstrators outsid

An unusual alliance appears likely to fracture Texas’s abortion ban

Most Supreme Court justices seem to understand that SB 8 is a direct attack on the Constitution.

By Ian Millhiser
Nov 1, 2021

The abortion providers suing to block SB 8, Texas’s aggressive anti-abortion law, came into Monday’s Supreme Court argument with four votes on their side. Two months earlier, four justices thought the law should have been temporarily blocked while the legal challenge against it was sorted out — although the five most conservative justices voted against the abortion providers the first time Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson was before the Court.

The same case is now back before the justices, this time raising a narrow dispute about who’s even allowed to sue to block the law. And the abortion providers appear likely to have picked up a crucial extra vote to gain the majority.

Continued: https://www.vox.com/2021/11/1/22757180/supreme-court-abortion-sb8-texas-whole-womans-health-jackson-united-states

Justice Department asks Supreme Court to block Texas’ 6-week abortion ban

By Ariane de Vogue, CNN Supreme Court Reporter
Mon October 18, 2021

(CNN)The Justice Department formally asked the Supreme Court Monday to step in and block a controversial Texas law that bars most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy while legal challenges play out.

The law is "clearly unconstitutional" and allowing it to remain in effect would "perpetuate the ongoing irreparable injury to thousands of Texas women who are being denied their constitutional rights," the Justice Department argues.

Continued: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/18/politics/supreme-court-abortion-appeal/index.html

Biden slams top court ruling on Texas abortion ban, vows action from federal government

U.S. Supreme Court voted 5-4 to deny emergency injunction on enforcement of abortion ban
The Associated Press
Posted: Sep 02, 2021

U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday lambasted the Supreme Court's decision not to block a new Texas law banning most abortions in the state and directed federal agencies to do what they can to "insulate women and providers" from the impact.

Hours earlier, in the middle of the night, a deeply divided high court allowed the state law to remain in force in the nation's biggest abortion curb since it legalized the procedure nationwide a half-century ago in Roe V. Wade.

Continued: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-abortion-ban-supreme-court-1.6162141

Supreme Court refuses to block Texas law banning abortions at six weeks

Texas law banning abortions at six weeks takes effect

By Robert Barnes, Ann E. Marimow, Emily Wax-Thibodeaux and Caroline Kitchener
Sep 1, 2021

A divided Supreme Court late Wednesday refused to block one of the nation's most restrictive abortion laws, a unique Texas statute that bans the procedure as early as six weeks into pregnancy.

Because the court did not act earlier in the day, the law already had taken effect, and clinics in Texas said they had stopped providing abortions starting at six weeks after a woman’s last period.

Continued: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html