Published:
September 29, 2020
The first abortion case that the Supreme Court will consider after the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg isn’t likely to overturn Roe v. Wade, but it could severely curtail access to safe, effective, early abortion during the pandemic. It would also clearly signal that the Court is willing to upend its own previous jurisprudence holding that laws and regulations cannot place an undue burden on those who are seeking abortions. Abigail R. A. Aiken, a public-health researcher at the University of Texas LBJ School of Public Affairs, who has studied Women on Web, has concluded that the service it offers is safe and effective. “Even if it takes years and years for the F.D.A. to catch up,” she told me, “people themselves are at the vanguard of this.”