The Right To An Abortion Isn't Going Away

While overturning Roe v. Wade would lead to new restrictions in many states, legal access to abortion would be unaffected in most of the country.

- By Jacob Sullum

“They’re taking away fundamental rights,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) declared during a pro-choice rally outside the Supreme Court last spring. Turning to point at the building behind him, an outraged Schumer delivered another warning: “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price! You won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.”

Schumer’s vague threat against Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s first and second Supreme Court nominees, drew a rare public rebuke from Chief Justice John Roberts. “Justices know that criticism comes with the territory, but threatening statements of this sort from the highest levels of government are not only inappropriate, they are dangerous,” Roberts said in a written statement. “All members of the Court will continue to do their job, without fear or favor, from whatever quarter.”

In addition to impinging on judicial independence, Schumer’s comments proved to be both ineffectual and unfounded. The rally where he spoke coincided with oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo, a constitutional challenge to a Louisiana law requiring that doctors who perform abortions have admitting privileges at local hospitals. The Court handed down its decision four months later, and it was by no means what Schumer would consider “awful.”