More States Looking to Limit Abortions. Is the Supreme Court Next?

Alabama recently enacted one of the country's most restrictive abortion laws - and we are seeing a surge in similar legislation across the country. According to The New York Times, Alabama marks the fifth state to pass a restrictive abortion law this year, with 11 other states pending. 

Mike Moreland, professor of law at Villanova, says laws being passed like the one in Alabama likely impose an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to abortion under the Supreme Court’s existing Roe-Casey framework. 

"As some of these cases, including a pending Louisiana case, work their way through the courts, the Supreme Court will eventually face a decision between finding a narrow ground for resolving the cases or deciding whether to revisit the entire Roe-Casey line of cases regarding a constitutional right to abortion," Moreland said.

"The Court could, for example, make it more difficult for abortion providers to bring broad facial challenges to state abortion restrictions, which would put off resolution of the major constitutional questions about abortion."

One thing to watch with the Supreme Court is a recent dissent given by Justice Stephen Breyer in a separate case on the Court's eagerness to overturn precedent: 

It is one thing to overrule a case when it “def[ies] practical workability,” when “related principles of law have so far developed as to have left the old rule no more than a remnant of abandoned doctrine,” or when “facts have so changed, or come to be seen so differently, as to have robbed the old rule of significant application or justification.” It is far more dangerous to overrule a decision only because five Members of a later Court come to agree with earlier dissenters on a difficult legal question. The majority has surrendered to the temptation to overrule Hall even though it is a well-reasoned decision that has caused no serious practical problems in the four decades since we decided it. Today’s decision can only cause one to wonder which cases the Court will overrule next.

To speak with Moreland, click on his headshot above, email mediaexperts@villanova.edu or call 610-519-5152.