Aziz Huq Writes About the Potential of Supreme Court Reform

Opinion | The Supreme Court Stopped Short of a Radical Act

The Supreme Court pulled back from the edge. In suspending the district court’s nationwide bar on the abortion pill mifepristone, the high court’s conservative majority (with two exceptions) declined to embrace the radicalism of its ideological allies. The move not only ensures access to a drug long deemed safe by the FDA but may help bolster the court’s increasingly tenuous public credibility.

The Supreme Court has recently experienced a sharp decline in popular support. That should not be surprising amid evidence suggesting that people view courts as being impartial if judicial decisions match their policy preferences. The series of high-profile rulings advancing policy interests aligned with the Republican Party’s right flank — on reproductive choice, on guns, on climate change — are shaping public opinion. They are likely driving Democratic voters to see the federal courts as instruments for the delivery of far-right policy preferences.

The decision to maintain the status quo on mifepristone by the same court that struck down Roe v Wade may be a quiet nod to the waning legitimacy of the court, and a concern about further backlash.

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