Word: roe
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...lower courts have struck down portions of the law. In November the Justice Department surprised many people by jumping into the Webster case to propose that the Supreme Court use the occasion to reverse Roe. While a reversal cannot be ruled out, few court watchers expect it just now. Supreme Court Justices usually prefer to muster a sizable majority behind highly controversial decisions, as they did in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the pivotal -- and unanimous -- 1954 school-desegregation case...
...think some Justices will put a lot of weight on having a stronger majority," says Columbia University law professor Vincent Blasi. "I also think they'll be confident that in the next few years they will get it." With Roe supporters William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall and Harry Blackmun all in their 80s, George Bush is likely to be able to make some court appointments...
...Brennan, Marshall and Blackmun are usually joined in abortion rulings by John Paul Stevens, a Gerald Ford appointee. Almost certain to be on the other side are Chief Justice William Rehnquist and Byron White, who were the two dissenters when Roe was decided. Reagan appointees Antonin Scalia and Anthony Kennedy never ruled on an abortion case during their years as lower- court judges, but both men are expected to favor limiting or overturning the decision...
That leaves Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the court, at the pivotal point of a 4-to-4 standoff. Though also a Reagan appointee, O'Connor has indicated that she would not reverse Roe entirely. But she has been strongly willing in the past to give states greater latitude to limit the availability of abortion, and limits are something that pro-choice forces fear almost as much as a reversal. Axing Roe would instantly bring home to millions of American women what they had lost. Whittling it away step by step, case by case could...
...written by Justice Blackmun, the Roe ruling forbids states to restrict a woman's right to abortion in the first twelve weeks of pregnancy. In the second trimester states may restrict abortion only to safeguard the mother's health. Though the court decided that the fetus was not a "person" under the law, it did recognize that states had an interest in protecting "potential life." Because the fetus was considered viable in the final twelve weeks, states were permitted to ban third-trimester abortions, except those necessary to preserve the health of the mother...