Welcome to Courtside, everyone, a discussion of legal issues. Today, I want to talk about something

I've been warning about for a long time, which is the United States Supreme Court getting back

into the abortion fray. The Supreme Court, six days ago, agreed to hear a major case out of Mississippi,

one that really does truly threaten the viability of Roe versus

weight. Now, there are endless ways to criticize abortions bans. You can call them cruel,

paternalistic, hypocritical. But the one criticism that's always stuck and that conservatives can't

ignore is that they are unconstitutional. Without that in their way,

it's open season on reproductive rights, which is why the Supreme Court's decision is so important.

Now, at stake, just so we're all on the same page, is not the Supreme Court will outlaw abortion

when they hear this case. The Supreme Court can't do that. They have the power of

judicial review and only the power of judicial review. And that means they have the power to review

a law passed by someone else and say, up or down, it's constitutional or it's not constitutional,

that it's permissible for a state to enact this law or not. So, for example,

in Roe v. Wade, in 1973, the Supreme Court in a seven to two decision said that a law passed

in Texas by the legislature was unconstitutional, that even though it had popular support, it was a violation of

fundamental rights, and the legislature couldn't do it. That law criminalized abortion. The Supreme

Court said, uh-uh, you can't do that. You can't restrict abortion, at least using the trimester

framework, so you can't do it until the point

of viability, which is usually in the 23rd or 24th week. That's been the law for about 50 years.

But the state of Mississippi has now come along and said, nope, we're going to ban abortion after 15

weeks. And Texas, for its part, not wanting to be

outdone, outlaws abortion now after six weeks. The Supreme Court has the power to review these

...