Hello and welcome to the 538 Politics Podcast.

I'm Gailan Druke.

On Wednesday, the Supreme Court allowed a Texas Law to go into effect that bans the overwhelming

majority of abortions in the state.

It's now the most restrictive abortion law in the country.

In a five-four opinion, the Court's conservative majority declined to halt the law while challenges

make their way through Texas courts.

Chief Justice John Roberts, a conservative, joined the Liberals in dissenting.

The ban prevents women from getting an abortion beyond around the sixth week of pregnancy,

which is when 85-90% of abortions happen according to many abortion providers in the state.

The legal precedent set out in Roe v Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey prevents states

from banning abortion before around 24 weeks of pregnancy.

The conservatives on the court said they didn't have the authority to intervene in this case,

a notion that is disputed because of the unique way the Texas Law is enforced.

It would be enforced by individual Texans as opposed to the state government.

And more on that in a minute, the conservative majority did stress that their decision

was not an indication of whether the law itself was constitutional.

So this legal fight is not over.

But nonetheless, the law is now in effect in Texas, meaning that for the time being approximately

85-90% of abortions in the state are banned.

Today, we're going to look at the legal debates that are playing out, the politics in Texas

that produced this law, and the current debate over abortion more broadly.

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