Since someone leaked a draft of the Supreme Court’s opinion in this year’s big abortion case, two questions have emerged about the scope of conservative policy goals. Will Republicans try to ban abortion by federal statute if Roe v. Wade is overruled, or leave the issue to the states? And will the Republican appointees on the Supreme Court overturn other precedents with a family resemblance to the 1973 abortion-rights ruling?
In both cases, there are reasons to expect circumstances to block conservative ambitions.
Many Republicans in Congress are saying that abortion after Roe will be a state matter, but they do not really believe it. Republicans overwhelmingly voted to ban partial-birth abortion at the federal level during the George W. Bush administration. More recently, they have sought a federal ban on abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy. They succeeded in the first project and have failed in the second. Now that Roe appears to be on its way out, some Republicans are talking about a nationwide ban on abortion after six weeks.
