Erica Grieder: Supreme Court’s apparent eagerness to overturn Roe raises the question: What’s next?

This was a demoralizing week for many Americans, a week that left many wondering what kind of country this actually is and what our political leaders are even doing. On Monday, there came a bombshell from the Supreme Court in the form of a leaked draft opinion by Justice Samuel Alito in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health, a case that nominally concerns a new Mississippi law banning abortions after the 15-week mark. The opinion would not only uphold the Mississippi law; it would overturn the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, Roe v Wade, returning the issue to the states. As if potentially taking away a woman’s right to choose after nearly 50 years weren’t enough, the draft serves as a stark reminder of the willingness of the Supreme Court, as reshaped by Republican Donald Trump during his presidency, to move away from being a moderating force to one that seeks to impose far-right views.

Alito’s opinion offered an unapologetic evisceration of Roe, an opinion that Trump’s three picks to the high court seemed to suggest was settled law in their confirmation hearings . It also raised the prospect that other landmark rulings might be revisited with skepticism over whether the rights they recognize and uphold are “deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and traditions,” in Alito’s words. These include Obergefell v. Hodges, recognizing the right to same-sex marriage; Loving v. Virginia, enshrining the right to interracial marriage; and Griswold v. Connecticut, recognizing the right of married couples to use contraception. If Roe is vulnerable, as it obviously is, what else is on the line? Many Republicans spent the week scoffing at that question. Others answered it. Two days after news of the leaked Alito opinion, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he’d like to launch an attack on 1982’s Plyler v Doe, which struck down a 1975 Texas law defunding the public school education of immigrant kids living in the country without legal permission. “I think that we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many years ago,” said Abbott, a conservative Republican whose demagoguery on the immigration issue seemingly knows no limits.