In agreeing to hear the Mississippi abortion case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this week placed directly in its crosshairs the court’s two foundational modern abortion precedents, Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In preparing to decide whether all restrictions on pre-”viability” abortions are unconstitutional, as the court’s order for a writ of certiorari indicates it will do, the court is teeing itself up for a potentially landmark—or potentially grievously disappointing—ruling next term. In girding itself to rule in Dobbs, and by extension ruling on the life-or-death fortunes of countless unborn children on this bedrock civilizational justice issue, a nominally conservative court is set to also decide the life-or-death fate of the legal conservative movement itself.
The Supreme Court stands in Washington, on Dec. 11, 2020. Stefani Reynolds/Getty Images
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Commentary
Josh Hammer
Author
Josh Hammer is opinion editor of Newsweek, a research fellow with the Edmund Burke Foundation, counsel and policy advisor for the Internet Accountability Project, a syndicated columnist through Creators, and a contributing editor for Anchoring Truths. A frequent pundit and essayist on political, legal, and cultural issues, Hammer is a constitutional attorney by training. He hosts “The Josh Hammer Show,” a Newsweek podcast, and co-hosts the Edmund Burke Foundation's “NatCon Squad” podcast. Hammer is a college campus speaker through Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Young America's Foundation, as well as a law school campus speaker through the Federalist Society. Prior to Newsweek and The Daily Wire, where he was an editor, Hammer worked at a large law firm and clerked for a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Hammer has also served as a John Marshall Fellow with the Claremont Institute and a fellow with the James Wilson Institute. Hammer graduated from Duke University, where he majored in economics, and from the University of Chicago Law School. He lives in Florida, but remains an active member of the State Bar of Texas.
