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

Stephen Breyer’s Unique Legacy on Abortion

His Supreme Court successor should keep in mind the power of digging deep into data — and reminding all the justices how their rulings would affect real Americans.

Opinion by MARY ZIEGLER
01/28/2022

Justice Stephen Breyer is scheduled to leave the Supreme Court just as his conservative colleagues are poised to dismantle a key part of his legacy: the court’s approach to a right to choose abortion.

Breyer’s name might not immediately come to mind when anyone thinks about abortion rights. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the late feminist icon, was arguably the court’s most eloquent defender of reproductive rights. Justice Sonia Sotomayor has taken on that role in the current court. Justice Anthony Kennedy, who long cast the swing vote in abortion cases, helped both to save abortion rights in 1992 and to water down protections for them, holding that abortion regulations would be unconstitutional only if they created an “undue burden.”

Continued: https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/28/steve-breyens-supremecourt-replacement-abortion-data-00000019

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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5th Circuit Court of Appeals

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

How Trump Transformed the Supreme Court

The legal journalist Linda Greenhouse expects the new conservative majority to change American law on abortion, religion, and affirmative action.

By Isaac Chotiner
November 11, 2021

Despite serving only one term in office, Donald Trump was able to appoint three Justices to the Supreme Court, giving it a six-member conservative majority. In September, the Court declined to block enforcement of a controversial Texas law that prohibits abortions in the state after approximately six weeks of pregnancy and allows almost anyone to sue a person who “aided or abetted” an abortion after that point. After a public outcry, the Court heard expedited arguments on the law earlier this month. Later this term, the Court will also consider the legality of a Mississippi law that bans abortions after fifteen weeks, a case that could result in the Court overturning Roe v. Wade. This week, I spoke about the Court with Linda Greenhouse, a lecturer at Yale Law School and a contributing writer for the Times, where she reported on the Court for almost thirty years. She is the author of the new book “Justice on the Brink: The Death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Rise of Amy Coney Barrett, and Twelve Months That Transformed the Supreme Court,” which recounts the time between Justice Ginsburg’s death and the conclusion of the Court’s first term with Justice Barrett.

Continued: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/how-trump-transformed-the-supreme-court

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

Cecile Richards marks a year since RBG death with abortion rights battle cry

Former Planned Parenthood president cites Texas law and says Republicans are on brink of ending right to abortion

Martin Pengelly and agencies
Sat 18 Sep 2021

Marking the first anniversary of the death of the supreme court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Cecile Richards warned that after nearly 50 years, Republicans are on the brink of ending the right to abortion.

“We must fight to fully regain it,” said the former president of Planned Parenthood, a leading provider of women’s healthcare.

Continued: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/sep/18/abortion-rights-campaigner-anniversary-rbg-death

18.09.2021