Originally Posted by politicophile

This thread, unfortunately, has little to do with the SD bill already, but I'll do my best to turn us around.

The bill will be challenged as unconstitutional. It will go through the court system, being struck down at every level as inconsistent with Supreme Court precident. Finally it will reach the highest court in the land. And there...

The right to privacy was an improper reading of the Constitution from the start. That said, it has been a part of our national law and jurisprudence for so long that some may support it even though they believe it was a faulty concept to begin with.

The likely vote will be: Ginsberg, Stevens, Souter, Breyer, and ?Kennedy? upholding Roe and Thomas, Scalia, Alito, and possibly Roberts voting to overturn it. The Chief is definitely the hardest vote to predict on this one. However, there is very little possibility that the conservative faction could locate a fifth vote, so this speculation is not particularly meaningful.

One final point: if Roe is overturned, what happens to the right to abortion?

A common answer: abortion immediately becomes illegal throughout the United States.

This is, of course, completely false. If Roe is overturned, states will then have the opportunity to decide for themselves if they are interested in banning abortions or not. Thus, abortion would soon be banned in the bible belt, but would remain legal in the blue states.