The Supreme Court heard two challenges to Texas’ restrictive abortion law Monday. This was just the start to a contentious week for the justices, with arguments over New York’s gun rights law slated for Wednesday. Nancy Gertner, senior lecturer at Harvard Law and a member of President Biden's Supreme Court Commission and Renée Landers, Suffolk University constitutional law expert, joined Jim Braude on Greater Boston to discuss.
Landers said that this week’s hearings showed the complexity of implementing the Texas law. “My impression is that they [the justices] recognize that it was a mistake to have let the law go into effect without the benefit of full argument and litigation below,” she said, noting that allowing the law to stand could impact other areas of law like gun control.
“It’s a real challenge to their ability interpret the federal Constitution," she added.
Gertner looked ahead to the upcoming Mississippi case, a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, which she called “dire” for abortion rights. “It’s unimaginable that their purpose was anything other than to carve up Roe v. Wade or to reverse it,” she said. “The Right has been emboldened now to challenge reproductive freedom, and so it’s only a question of time before the next case and the next case and the next case.”
WATCH: What Do The SCOTUS Hearings Mean For Roe V. Wade?
