多年来，在堕胎报道中，人们都在重复同样的话:不，罗伊诉韦德案不会被推翻，但堕胎权将继续被更狭窄的法律剥夺。
周五晚上，随着最高法院法官鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格的去世，这种情况发生了变化。面对总统唐纳德·特朗普，谁有说他会任命法官推翻使堕胎成为美国受保护的权利的里程碑式的案件，将能够向最高法院再作一次任命，突然之间，罗伊案本身可能被从账簿上抹去成为现实。
美国公民自由联盟生殖自由项目主任珍妮弗·达文(Jennifer Dalven)告诉美国广播公司新闻，“我当然会和像你这样的人交谈，说，‘过于强调罗伊案是否被推翻，因为你知道，他们可以在不推翻罗伊案的情况下，让堕胎对数百万人来说等同于非法。’”“这在今天仍然适用，但现在，我认为，随着其他人的潜力，一个新的法官，以及特朗普总统在最高法院任命了三名法官，这使得罗伊处于更加危险的境地——堕胎的权利。”
最高法院对堕胎权的支持已经很有限。安东尼·肯尼迪大法官2018年退休后，首席大法官约翰·罗伯茨以摇摆选民的身份介入，就像他今年所做的那样六月，路易斯安那州的一个堕胎案，医疗诉罗素在2016年的《全女性健康诉海勒斯特德》一案中，他支持倾向自由派的法官，尽管有一份警告性的书面意见。
现在没有金斯伯格，堕胎权在美国的命运归结为下一次最高法院任命的高度政治化的戏剧。特朗普的任命到目前为止-布雷特·卡瓦诺尼尔·戈鲁奇(Neil Gorsuch)在《六月医学》(June Medical)中支持保守派反对堕胎提供者，戈鲁奇的观点将堕胎定位为一种潜在的不安全程序(从统计学上来说，它比结肠镜检查更安全)，卡瓦诺(Kavanaugh)主张在这种情况下进行更多的事实调查。在他们的各自的确认听证会，两个人都注意到Roe是一个既定的先例但是许多堕胎倡导者并不完全相信这意味着他们不想重新讨论，更不用说加强讨论了。
要么特朗普获得第三次终身任命，要么民主党人和一些共和党人扼杀提名过程，乔·拜登赢得选举，他获得任命金斯伯格的继任者。
“瞧，我们都知道特朗普总统发誓“只是为了让最高法院的法官推翻罗伊诉韦德案，并允许各州彻底禁止堕胎，”达文说。因此，谁来选择下一任法官将决定罗伊诉韦德案的未来。就这么简单。"
如果特朗普获得任命，罗格斯大学法学院联合院长兼法学教授金伯利·穆奇森(Kimberly Mutcherson)对美国广播公司新闻频道(ABC News)表示:“我们实际上可以看到罗伊案被推翻，因为当金斯伯格的投票变成‘罗伊案被错误决定’的投票时，票数就会变成5比4...因为这样罗伯茨站在自由派一边就没什么大不了了。”
曼德尔·颜/法新社通过盖蒂图像，文件
2009年9月29日，华盛顿，最高法院大法官鲁斯·巴德·金斯伯格在最高法院东会议室合影。
“从长远来看，”国家生命权委员会执行主任大卫·奥斯汀(David O’Steen)说，“我认为(罗)将被视为错误的决定，当法院中有多数人根据宪法中写的实际文字实际解释宪法时，就会出现这种情况。”
他补充说，“我完全相信总统会提名一个他认为会遵守宪法文本的人。”
特朗普和参议院多数党领袖米奇·麦康奈尔表示，他们将在选举前推动提名。据消息来源称领先者是保守的美国巡回法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特。
如果Roe被推翻，堕胎权将落到各州手中，许多州已经为这种可能性做好了准备。州长们在双方都签署了“触发”法律，要么立即保护这一权利，要么说这不是该州的权利。根据生育权中心的“如果罗伊摔倒了怎么办?”项目，堕胎在21个州仍然合法，在24个州和3个地区可能被禁止。
为了推翻罗伊案，法院需要审理一个堕胎案件，他们可以求助于罗伊案本身。法院观察员一直在关注2016年堕胎案的原告“全女性健康”提起的诉讼，该诉讼质疑堕胎扩张和疏散(D&E)方法的禁令。那个案子是在第五巡回法庭听到正在等待判决。俄亥俄州的另一个潜在案例正在酝酿中，挑战基于唐氏综合征诊断寻求堕胎的禁令。
然而，推翻一个近50年的先例将是一个重大举措，可能会引起人们对法院是否被政治化的质疑，特别是因为特朗普一直直言不讳地表示希望推翻罗伊案，所以法官们需要提出一个强有力的案例，法院观察家们基本上认为罗伯茨对此非常清楚。推翻罗伊案还意味着解决其随后的最高法院裁决，主要是1992年的计划生育诉凯西案、2016年的《全女性健康》案，甚至可能是2000年代初的卡哈特案，在这些案件中，法院裁定堕胎服务提供者不得进行后期堕胎。
但即使没有决定推翻罗伊案，最高法院——由特朗普或拜登任命——也可能继续削减堕胎权。例如，法院可以支持D&E禁令，这将是事实上禁止中期妊娠堕胎，因为这是该阶段最安全和最常见的程序。然后，法院可以维持对远程医疗的限制，切断农村地区依靠远程医疗获得药物流产的患者获得流产的途径。法院可能会跟进俄亥俄州的案件，并根据寻求堕胎的理由削减准入。
全美妇女健康组织总裁兼首席执行官艾米·哈格斯特罗姆·米勒指出，反堕胎立法者可以遵循罗伯茨在6月份的医学意见中指出的框架，取消2016年设定的保护措施。对她来说，在预约之前，现在的情况和星期五下午没有太大的不同。
皮特·马洛维奇/盖蒂影像公司
2016年6月27日，德克萨斯州堕胎服务提供者艾米·哈格斯特罗姆-米勒和生殖权利中心主席南希·诺瑟普在华盛顿美国最高法院的台阶上向支持者挥手致意。在一项5比3的决定中，最高法院取消了美国最严格的堕胎限制之一，这是一项德克萨斯州的法律，妇女组织表示，该法律将迫使该州超过四分之三的诊所关闭。
“这一任命将会发生什么，谁来选择谁是下一任法官，还有待观察，”她说。“特朗普总统已经完全塑造了联邦法院、巡回法院。和四年前完全不一样了。通往最高法院的道路已经改变了。”
不管发生了什么，生殖权利领域的许多人说，他们从金斯伯格的声音中感受到了痛苦的损失，这种声音持续不断把女性放在第一位。
哈格斯特罗姆·米勒说:“她非常擅长将堕胎这件事融入到关于妇女平等和妇女自主以及我们对自己生活做出重大决策的权利的更大叙事中。”
生殖权利中心主席南希·诺苏普(Nancy Northup)告诉美国广播公司新闻，“金斯伯格法官的任何继任者都需要了解女权法理学，了解遵循先例和法律规定的公平待遇的必要性。”“这意味着，在1月份总统和新国会就职之前，不要急于推动这一进程和政治进程，这是非常必要的。”
“我们被放在这个权力和重要性的位置上，为那些如此自豪地选举我们的人做出决定，其中最重要的一直被认为是美国最高法院法官的选择，”特朗普周六早上发推特。“我们有这个义务，刻不容缓!”
Mutcherson说，不仅仅是堕胎，选举前仓促的提名投票将代表“一种宪法危机”，“不尊重我们的宪法秩序，这是一个非常可怕的时刻”。
“我想知道，”她补充道，“如果有足够多的共和党人，或者有足够多的温和派共和党人，谁会说，‘不管罗伊诉韦德案对我来说有多重要，对我来说更重要的是我们要尊重我们的制度。’"
Is Ginsburg's death the end of Roe v. Wade? This time, some experts say, it could be.
For years in abortion reporting, the refrain was the same: no, Roe v Wade is not going to be overturned, but access to abortion will continue to be stripped away through narrower laws.
That changed Friday night with the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Facing the express possibility that PresidentDonald Trump, who hassaid he would appoint justices to overturnthe landmark case that made abortion a protected right across the United States, will be able to make another appointment to the Supreme Court, suddenly it became a reality that Roe itself could be written off the books.
"I was certainly one who would talk to folks like yourself and say, 'There's too much emphasis being placed on whether Roe is overturned because they can, you know, make abortion as good as illegal for millions of people without overturning Roe,'" Jennifer Dalven, director of the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, told ABC News. "And that remains true today, but now, I think, with the potential of somebody else, a new justice, and President Trump having appointed three justices on the Supreme Court, it makes it so that Roe is in even further jeopardy -- the right to have an abortion at all."
Support for the right to abortion at the Supreme Court already was limited. After Justice Anthony Kennedy's 2018 retirement, Chief Justice John Roberts stepped in as a sort of swing voter, as he did this yearin June Medical v. Russo, an abortion case out of Louisianaabout hospital admitting privileges that mimicked the Texas law struck down in 2016's Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt, for which he sided with the liberal-leaning justices, albeit with a cautionary written opinion.
Now without Ginsburg, the fate of abortion rights in America comes down to the highly politicized drama of the next Supreme Court appointment. Trump's appointments so far --Brett Kavanaughand Neil Gorsuch -- sided with the conservatives against the abortion providers in June Medical, with Gorsuch's opinion positioning abortion as a potentially unsafe procedure (statistically, it's safer than a colonoscopy) and Kavanaugh's advocating for more fact-finding in that case. In theirrespective confirmation hearings, both men noted thatRoe was a settled precedent, but many abortion advocates were not sufficiently convinced that meant they would not want to revisit, let alone reinforce, it.
Either Trump gets a third lifetime appointment or Democrats and some Republicans stifle the nomination process, Joe Biden wins the election, and he gets to appoint Ginsburg's replacement.
"Look, we all know thatPresident Trump has vowedonly to put justices on the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe v. Wade and allow the states to ban abortion outright," Dalven said. "So, who gets to select the next justice will determine the future of Roe v. Wade. It's that simple."
Should Trump get the appointment, Kimberly Mutcherson, co-dean and law professor at Rutgers Law School, told ABC News: "We could actually at that point see Roe overturned because when Ginsburg's vote turns into a 'Roe was wrongly decided' vote, then that becomes 5-4 ... because then it won't really matter that Roberts is siding with the liberals."
Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg poses during a group photo in the East Conference Room of the Supreme Court, in Washington, Sept. 29, 2009.
"In the long-term," said David O'Steen, executive director of the National Right to Life Committee, "I think [Roe] will be seen as wrongly decided, and that will come when there's a majority on the court that will actually interpret the Constitution according to the actual words written in the Constitution."
He added, "I would fully expect that the president will nominate someone that he believes will adhere to the text of the Constitution."
Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have indicated they will be pushing forward a nomination before the election. According to sources, thefront-runner isconservative U.S. Circuit Judge Amy Coney Barrett.
Should Roe be overturned, the right to abortion would fall to states, and many states have prepared for that possibility. Governors have signed "trigger" laws on both sides that would either immediately protect the right or say it's not a right in that state. According to theCenter for Reproductive Right's "What if Roe Fell?" project, abortion would remain legal in 21 states and would likely be prohibited in 24 states and three territories.
In order to overturn Roe, the court would need to hear an abortion case, which they could turn to make about Roe itself. Court-watchers have been following a case brought by Whole Woman's Health, the plaintiff in the landmark 2016 abortion case, challenging a ban on the dilation and evacuation (D&E) method of abortion. That case washeard in the 5th Circuitand is awaiting a decision. Another potential case in the pipeline, out of Ohio, challenges a ban on abortions sought on the basis of a Down syndrome diagnosis.
Overturning a nearly 50-year-old precedent, though, would be a major move that would likely draw questions about if the court had been politicized, especially since Trump has been vocal about wanting to strike down Roe, so the justices would need to present a strong case -- which court-watchers largely believe Roberts is keenly aware of. Overturning Roe would also mean addressing its subsequent Supreme Court decisions, primarily 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey, 2016's Whole Woman's Health and possibly even the early 2000s' Carhart cases, in which the court ruled against abortion providers on later-term abortions.
But even without deciding to overturn Roe, the Supreme Court -- with a Trump or Biden appointee -- could continue to chip away at access to abortion. For example, the court could uphold the D&E ban, which would be a de facto ban on second-trimester abortions, as it's the safest and most common procedure at that stage. Then, the court could uphold restrictions on telemedicine, cutting off access to abortion for patients in rural areas who rely on telemedicine to access medication abortion. The court could follow the Ohio case and chip away at access based on the reasoning for seeking an abortion.
And more, anti-abortion legislators could follow a framework Roberts indicated in his June Medical opinion to undo protections set in 2016, pointed out Amy Hagstrom Miller, president and CEO of Whole Woman's Health. To her, until an appointment is made, the situation is not much different now than it was on Friday afternoon.
Texas abortion provider Amy Hagstrom-Miller and Nancy Northup, President of The Center for Reproductive Rights wave to supporters as they decend the steps of the United States Supreme Court on June 27, 2016, in Washington. In a 5-3 decision, the Supreme Court struck down one of the nation's toughest restrictions on abortion, a Texas law that women's groups said would have forced more than three-quarters of the state's clinics to close.
"It kind of remains to be seen what would happen with this appointment and who gets to pick who the next justice is," she said. "Already President Trump has completely shaped the Federal Court, Circuit Court. It's completely different than it was four years ago. And the path to the Supreme Court is already changed."
Regardless of what happens, many in the reproductive rights space say they are feeling a poignant loss in Ginsburg's voice, which continuallyput women at the forefront.
"She was so adept at weaving the abortion piece of it into the larger narrative about women's equality and women's autonomy and our right to make decisions about our lives writ large," Hagstrom Miller said.
"Any replacement of Justice Ginsburg needs to be someone who understands the jurisprudence of women's rights and understands the necessity for following precedent and fair treatment under the law," Nancy Northup, president of the Center for Reproductive Rights, told ABC News. "And that means that it's really imperative that there not be a rushed process and a political process to try to push this to happen before the inauguration of the president and the new Congress in January."
"We were put in this position of power and importance to make decisions for the people who so proudly elected us, the most important of which has long been considered to be the selection of United States Supreme Court Justices,"Trump tweeted Saturday morning. "We have this obligation, without delay!"
More so than about abortion specifically, Mutcherson said a rushed nomination vote before the election would represent "a sort of constitutional crisis" where "there's no respect for our constitutional order, and that's a really scary moment to be in."
"And I wonder," she added, "if there are enough Republicans out there, or moderate Republicans out there, who would say, 'No matter how important it is to me to see Roe v. Wade fall, it's more important to me that we show respect for our system.'"
