Roe v. Wade abortion ruling could be in jeopardy

Replacing the late Antonin Scalia with a conservative justice won’t change the court’s balance. For this, I’m joined by NPR legal affairs correspondent Nina Totenberg.

“I’m pro-life”, Trump said. The judges will be pro-life.

“I am much more concerned about his threat to undo protections for LGBT federal employees and students, deport large numbers of immigrants, privatize Medicare, turn Medicaid into block grants, and remove any checks on the misuse of police violence”, said Minter.

According to Gay Star News, in 2003 Pryor defended a Texan law that criminalised consensual sex between two men in privacy, arguing that states should be allowed to prosecute LGBT+ people. As Democrats lost the House in 2010 and the Senate in 2014, the US saw a sharp increase in “TRAP laws” meant to restrict abortion access. Another legal issue he was asked about – does he support same-sex marriage?

The Supreme Court deadlocked on the constitutionality of coercive dues payments in the wake of Scalia’s death in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association. “I mean it’s done”, Trump replied.

“Where, in the performance of its judicial duties, the Court decides a case in such a way as to resolve the sort of intensely divisive controversy reflected in Roe and those rare, comparable cases, its decision has a dimension that the resolution of the normal case does not carry”. The anti-choice movement has exhausted most legal paths that could even potentially put this issue in front of the Supreme Court again.

Shannon Minter, legal director for the National Center for Lesbian Rights, said, “There is no reason to believe that Trump intends to go after marriage equality, and it would be very hard for him to do that”.

TOTENBERG: Actually, the opposite – the longer a decision is in place, the more weight it has.

The Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision in Roe balanced a woman’s right to have an abortion against the desire of some states to protect the unborn by allowing increased levels of regulation during the last trimester of pregnancy.

Republicans in the senate have refused to hold a hearing or a vote on President Obama’s nominee, the moderate judge Merrick Garland of D.C.’s appeals court.

KS: There are a couple of ways this could happen. Two of the justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Justice Anthony Kennedy, are over 80.

Justice Kennedy, now 80 years old, is perhaps roughly as likely to pass away within the next four years as either Ginsburg or Breyer.

Similarly, Justice Kennedy is now seen as the Court’s perennial swing voter. O’Connor was something of a swing vote, and her replacement with the reliably conservative Alito had a profound impact on the Court’s decisions.

KS: Justice Scalia was a strong opponent of Roe and Casey; a jurist who shared his views in this area would maintain the status quo, which is 4 strong votes in favor of Roe, 4 Justices who don’t believe the Constitution protects the right to abortion, and Justice Kennedy, who has voted with both blocks when it comes to abortion (though it’s significant that his most recent vote in an abortion case was with the liberals). However, the billionaire added that the issue still “has a long, long way to go”, so they still have to wait and see what happens. “Well, I’ll tell you what I’m going to do, I’m going to think about it”, he said. He has a government that can vet candidates.

Republicans’ obstructionism and blatant refusal to compromise on a justice with President Obama this year came under heavy scrutiny from the media and Democrats, but you have to give them credit.

SIEGEL: And what do you know about what Donald Trump really wants in the way of a Supreme Court justice?

What does a Donald Trump presidency mean for the Supreme Court?

But given both Justice Kennedy’s recent decisions favoring abortion rights and Trump’s stance on seeking to appoint justices to invalidate such rights, Kennedy’s retirement would be nearly as fatal for abortion rights under the Constitution as would the deaths of either Justice Ginsburg or Justice Breyer.

Charles Moran, an openly gay businessman in Los Angeles who was a Trump delegate to the Republican National Convention, said Trump’s remarks about marriage equality being settled law are “consistent with his comments during the campaign”. What – who are they?

Trump then said he would tell violent or prejudiced supporters who are harassing members of minority groups, “Don’t do it”. And no one else has ever been so clinically specific about the legal positions he expects his justices to take once on the bench.

SIEGEL: NPR’s Nina Totenberg, thank you.