If ‘Roe’ Was Never Enough, Why Was It Everything? (And a Word to My Boom! Lawyered Fam)

I want to tell you about a morning.

It was March 2020.

I was outside the Supreme Court for oral arguments in June Medical Services v. Russo.

And if you don't know that case, here's what you need to know.

Louisiana had passed an admitting privileges law that was almost identical, like word for word identical, to the Texas law the court had struck down four years earlier in Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.

Now, what are admitting privileges? That's when a state requires abortion providers to have formal admitting rights at a nearby hospital, which sounds reasonable until you realize most hospitals won't grant admitting privileges to abortion providers, which means the law was designed to close clinics, not to protect patients.

So the Supreme Court told Texas no in 2016.

But then Louisiana was like, let's give it a go anyway.

And even though Roberts ultimately voted with the liberals to strike down that law, the writing was on the wall for abortion rights.

But in June Medical, we were dealing with the same law, different state, New court.

And that last part is the important part.

Because between 2016 and 2020, Scalia died and Gorsuch took his seat.

Kennedy retired and Kavanaugh took his.

The makeup of the court had changed and Louisiana looked at the state of things and said, let's run it back.

So I'm standing outside the court with a bunch of other Reaper rights enthusiasts and advocates.

I'm talking to people.

I'm feeling the vibe.

It's cold.

It's March in D.C. And nobody knows yet that in two weeks, everything was going to shut down and the world was going to look completely different thanks to COVID.

And I'm angry about what was going on inside the courtroom, not nervous, angry, because we were here again fighting the same fight because the other side had looked at a Supreme Court decision that said you cannot do this and decided that actually with the right court, maybe you can.

Throughout the day, I paid attention to the coverage of the case.

Advocates and lawyers and journalists all talking about admitting privileges and standing doctrine.

Whether abortion providers even had the right to be in court challenging these abortion restrictions.

And whether Roberts, who was the swing vote in the case, alarming, was going to hold the line and say Whole Woman's Health versus Hellerstedt was still precedent that had to be followed.

And everything everyone is saying is correct.