Pro-choice groups are worried the impending retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy could put the U-S Supreme Court in a position to reverse the 1973 Roe -v- Wade decision legalizing abortion. Hamline University Professor David Schultz says he doesn’t necessarily expect the justices would directly overturn the ruling but, “Perhaps continued erosion of that precedent, thereby leaving Roe at least in theory on the books, but placing more limits on… a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.”
Schultz says it’s likely impossible at this point to roll back decisions recognizing same-sex marriage but, “Where I see a potential halt will be in terms of interpreting civil rights laws to protect gays and lesbians and transgender people in terms of workplace, housing and other forms of discrimination.”
Schultz notes Justice Kennedy has been a conservative swing vote on the high court, and his departure allows President Trump to replace him with someone who will probably be fully conservative. Schultz says Kennedy’s retirement will tip the balance of the U-S Supreme Court even more conservative “for probably the next generation.”
More in this interview with MNN’s Bill Werner: