case is where we start today. joyce vance is here at the table. also at the table, john heilemann, nbc news and nbc national affairs analyst as well as the host of the hell and high podcast. and take me through where this ended today. where this ended is an interesting question. it is just the right one to start with. the question is, if roe and casey don t survive, what comes next? it seems unlikely with the 6-3 conservative majority that roe and casey will survive as they currently exist. what do you do? do you in the words of justice brett kavanaugh return the decision to the states? he says the court shouldn t be picking sides but really no matter what court does here it will pick a side. if that s to leave the question of abortion to the states that s
roberts did. times reports, quote, assuming the three most conservative members of the court, justices alito, thomas, and gorsuch are prepared to overrule roe entirely chief justice roberts would need to i a tract two votes for narrower opinion, one upholing mississippi law but not overruling roe in so many wore to be controlling. but justices kavanaugh and coney barrett said little to incline they were inclined toward the narrowing approach. justices ryan, kagan, and society myiar, the liberal justices insisted the dangers of overturning a watershed decision like roe with society mayior asking whether the court would survive the stench of being a political institution. surviving the stench in the words of justice society my major, possibly the only question about the mississippi
it back to john heilemann s point. we are in the same place except the republicans on the supreme court are not the same as the republican appointees on that supreme court. these republican appointed justices do not appear open to the possibility of preserving precedent. of preserving roe. so we are just talking about how badly it will be decimated. to come back to justice sotomayor s point, what do they do about the stench of now being clearly seeing and acting as a political body. i think it s a thing they are looking at. the legitimacy of the supreme court is for sure on the line. and to the point of not much changing in these last five decades, it is still the case that pregnancy is a situation that can be dangerous. i say this as someone who had high-risk pregnancies. so that idea that it is just sort of a cavalier no big deal
seen instances where they ask tone deaf questions and what they are trying to tease out an answer they can t make their point of view, and they ask questions where they know the answer is going to be and they are trying to get the answer on the record. i don t know if that s the case in this ep stance but i have seen that many times on the supreme court. the justices are looking for is there an intermediatia standard because mississippi is now in a full-on way saying it is time to reverse roe versus wade. right. one possible interpretation of the question is they are searching for an answer that says there is no intermediate, it is all or nothing in let me play justice kagan as well. i guess what strikes me when i look at this case is that, you know, not much has changed since roe and casey, that people think it s right or wrong based on the
picking the side that says if the legislature decides a women shunt have the right to determine their own future in terms of pregnant that a state legislature can take it away from them. of course we saw the map that you put up. it s not like there is an even sprinkling across the country. if roe versus weighed is reversed there will be parts particularly in the deep south of the country where women will have to travel hundreds of miles to access something that s prfl been deemed a substantive right. what s? is there it seems there are five votes to undue roe s viability standard. ultimately, we are left with more questions than we had going in.