Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. paved his own path in Friday’s abortion ruling, siding with his fellow GOP-appointed justices in backing Mississippi’s 15-week ban as constitutional, but saying he would not have gone as far as his colleagues did in unraveling all of Roe v. Wade.
He said the “viability” standard Roe, and a later 1992 case, set for when abortion rights are no longer sacrosanct never made sense, and Mississippi had made the case that a 15-week line was valid.
But he said the court should have reached that conclusion without needing to overturn Roe, a nearly 50-year-old ruling that established a right to abortion in the Constitution, erasing state laws to the contrary.