What happens to rule of law if the law keeps changing?
When Justice Stephen Breyer began to speak, Amy Hagstrom Miller could barely believe it.
As he continued, she began to wonder if she was in the U.S. Supreme Court at all, or if she was dreaming.
The headline from Justice Breyer’s majority opinion four years ago, in Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt, was that the 5-to-4 decision found a Texas law unconstitutional in placing an “undue burden” on a woman’s right to seek an abortion. But the opinion went further, articulating a test of the potential medical benefits and burdens that regulation must satisfy to be constitutional.
For Ms. Miller – president and CEO of Whole Woman’s Health, the lead plaintiff in the case – it “was a pretty powerful thing to witness.”
“Not just the findings of fact, but the reasoning in the decision was beyond anything I’d dared dream,” she adds.
How different?“Up for grabs”?Third-party standingInsubordinate circuits?
