John Roberts has become a man on an island on the US Supreme Court.
The chief justice is a conservative who is trying to chart anIncremental course for the court.
Roberts tried to find a middle ground in the decision. He joined the conservative majority in support of Mississippi's 15-week abortion law but disagreed with the court's three liberals in opposing the majority's decision to overturn Wade.
Roberts has clashed with his fellow conservatives before. He was in favor of the liberals in the Texas abortion law, an Alabama voting district, and an environmental case. Conservatives say he doesn't fight enough to push their views.
Roberts wasn't able to control the direction of the court on abortion There is a lot of daylight between the two positions.
Roberts has historically soughtIncremental changes in constitutional law over time rather than large changes at once, and the abortion case was no different.
Roberts said he would have supported a restriction after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the same as the Mississippi law the court was reviewing. The Supreme Court left it up to the states to decide if abortion is legal.
Roberts said that both the court's opinion and the dissent show a freedom from doubt on the legal issue that he cannot share. I am not sure if the ban on abortion from the moment of conception should be treated the same as the ban after 15 weeks.
There was no other justice who agreed with him.
The abortion case was brought to the top of the Supreme CourtDocket.
The composition of the court has changed due to Roberts waning influence. Donald Trump only chose candidates who would vote to overturn the abortion law when he was president. Anthony Kennedy, a swing vote who sided with liberals on gay marriage and abortion, replaced Neil Gorsuch, who was the first person to replace him.
The influence of Roberts was diminished by the fact that Trump's third pick gave the wing a 6-3 majority.
According to a law professor at George Mason University, he is no longer the swing voter when it comes to issues.
The justices have exercised their influence by granting emergency requests. Liberal advocates use the term to criticize high court decisions that are not fully briefed and argued.
Roberts joined liberal voices in September when the court left in place a Texas law banning most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. Roberts didn't go as far as the liberals when he said that the law was unconstitutional.
He joined the liberals in dissent when the court restored an Alabama-drawn congressional map and blocked a ruling that would have required a second heavily Black district for the November election. He dissented as the court temporarily reinstated a rule that scaled back federal protections for streams, wetlands and other bodies of water.
Roberts was able to exert his influence before the court changed. It was in 2012 that he sided with liberal justices to become the deciding vote in the decision to uphold the health care law.
In 2020, former Vice President Mike Pence said that Roberts had been a disappointment to conservatives.
Jonathan Adler, a Case Western Reserve University law professor, said that the difference is that he is not the fifth vote.
Roberts has been trying to maintain public confidence in the court. There have been allegations of a conflict of interest for the longest serving conservative on the court. His wife was involved in trying to get rid of the results of the election that Trump lost.
According to a Gallup poll, Americans' confidence in the Supreme Court had reached a new low before the abortion ruling. The decline experienced by other institutions included in the survey is less than the decline experienced by the nation's highest court.
Before tens of thousands of protesters filled the streets of American cities in protest, Roberts wrote that he would leave to another day whether to reject any right to abortion at all.
Roberts warned that reversing precedents would be a serious blow to the legal system.
Lydia Wheeler assisted.
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