On overruling Roe

Over at Prawfsblawg, Jessie Hill (my favorite CWRU faculty member) recently wrote a trilogy of commentaries on the prospects and implications of overruling Roe v. Wade. She points out what I have often found myself pointing out to nonlawyers interested in the issue: that despite the recent Supreme Court appointments, there are still five clear votes for upholding Roe. And moreover, Justice Roberts's general attitude so far, together with the unanimous Ayotte opinion, suggests that he just might give considerable weight to the stare decisis factor than his conservative colleagues if he were in a position to swing the Court. This is all another way of saying that the state legislators busying themselves with creating "test" laws to challenge Roe are engaging in a huge waste of state resources.

More interesting than all that is Hill's thoughtful speculation about how state legislatures would react to such an overruling; whether pre-Roe bans would "reactivate" automatically; and whether the health exception requirement would remain.