The Atlantic

The Rules for Abortion Are Still Rules—Not Loopholes

Texas’s H.B.2 statute imposed regulations that yielded no health benefit but made abortion a lot harder to get. The Supreme Court wasn’t fooled.
Source: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

“We are supposed to be a neutral court of law,” Justice Samuel Alito told the relatively sparse audience at the Supreme Court’s final session Monday. “When it comes to ordinary legal rules … there is no justification for treating abortion cases differently from others.” Alito’s words were the opening of an angry bench dissent from the Court’s 5-3 decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, a blockbuster win for the forces of choice.

As a lawyer, I can sympathize with Alito’s sentiment. Good old “ordinary legal rules”! Life would be great if I could just go around muttering, “A waiver of assignment also operates as a waiver of sublease,” or “A standard-form contract is construed strictly against the drafter.” But abortion cases are , not legal, cases. Constitutional law operates (as it must) under its own rules. And even within the world of constitutional cases, abortion has always

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Atlantic

The Atlantic3 min read
They Rode the Rails, Made Friends, and Fell Out of Love With America
The open road is the great American literary device. Whether the example is Jack Kerouac or Tracy Chapman, the national canon is full of travel tales that observe America’s idiosyncrasies and inequalities, its dark corners and lost wanderers, but ult
The Atlantic4 min readAmerican Government
How Democrats Could Disqualify Trump If the Supreme Court Doesn’t
Near the end of the Supreme Court’s oral arguments about whether Colorado could exclude former President Donald Trump from its ballot as an insurrectionist, the attorney representing voters from the state offered a warning to the justices—one evoking
The Atlantic5 min readSocial History
The Pro-life Movement’s Not-So-Secret Plan for Trump
Sign up for The Decision, a newsletter featuring our 2024 election coverage. Donald Trump has made no secret of the fact that he regards his party’s position on reproductive rights as a political liability. He blamed the “abortion issue” for his part

Related Books & Audiobooks