rights that has that began the day after roe v. wade and has been a political motivator for so many republicans and the idea that there would be also this purity test, this litmus test, is what led us to the kavanaughs and the barretts of the world so we had this feeling of suddenly this incremental approach has given way to the mask slipping and the justices are hardly even pretending that their goal is anything but to undermine abortion rights and make it illegal in at least half of the states as a starting point. and it may not end there. yeah, it s a starting point. i mean, i think that s what s so grim, if you view reproductive freedoms as justice sotomayor described them as a right. which i think polls bear out, a vast majority of americans, including a plurality of republican women, do as well. i want to i want to talk about the politics, but i don t want to move away from what
yesterday was justice amy coney barrett s set of comments about safe haven, and i think some of your authors on this panel wrote about that. oh, it s safe haven. if the woman or the child doesn t want the pregnancy, safe haven will allow her to just relinquish maternal rights and be on with it. what a cavalier and really irresponsible, unconscionable thing to say, and this is from a justice sitting on the supreme court. we should be well beyond this at this point. this is politics. these justices are acting as pawns of the former president and what a sad day it will be for all of us if somehow they overturn roe v. wade. brian, the plot twist here is that the politics stink for the right. i mean, bloomberg is reporting that a recent survey by the dccc found that the message that republican candidates would seek to ban abortion was the strongest line of attack against
in the last 24 hours. you ve heard people say, well, in 2016, you didn t see the supreme court be a motivating issue for democratic voters and all really on the line then because donald trump was able to end up picking three justices in his four-year term, so if they weren t motivated then, what s going to motivate them now? and i think that s foolish. the idea of the hypothetical of roe being taken away versus the reality of it being taken away, i think, is going to provide sea change. we ve seen polling. when we did polling during kavanaugh and amy coney barrett, you found a majority of voters supported roe v. wade but they were skeptical that the worst case scenario would happen. if the supreme court pulls the rug out from under those people that are somewhat complacent about the status of roe and they provide that banner headline that roe s been overturned, i think you re going to see an awakening that people in the republican party are not braced for. you and i worked on opposit
roe v. wade decided a court 7-2 and it was a 7-2 decision to recognize this right to an abortion. planned parenthood versus casey in 1982. a decision by an overwhelmingly republican supreme court court. so these justices are not just conservative, they re far to the right of even where republican party justices have been in the past. so it s not a mystery when one asks well why is institutional legitimacy of the court dropping? it s because the court is out of the mainstream of american society and we haven t seen the effects of that all right now. i think after some very contentious confirmation hearings, what happened was the court decided to take a more incremental approach. not take some cases on hot button issues, but not after justice barrett has replaced ginsburg, i think the hats are off and they are rearing and ready to go and the american
conversation, katie. neil, i watched your coverage as this was happening and i felt despair watching your analysis. tell us what you made of today. you normally hear supreme court folks say you can t predict for moral argument and so and and the justices can surprise you, i agree with that to a certain point, but you can predict. most of the time you can predict. this is one in which yes, something unusual can happen, but the predictions are basically mississippi wins. the only question is do they win hugely big or win only basically one step below that, but still huge. and really, the debate is as mississippi started the oral argument, they came in with a full throated attack on roe versus wade, calling it a poison to the law in the first line then you know, they got some questions from justice breyer and sotomayor saying wait a