Justice Breyer Says Supreme Court Upholding Texas Abortion Ban Was ‘Very, Very Wrong’

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Elizabeth Gillis/NPR

Law
The Supreme Court Heads Toward Reversing Abortion Rights

The Texas statute is at odds with the Supreme Court’s precedents on abortion. Breyer was joined in the dissent by the court’s other two liberals and conservative Chief Justice John Roberts.

National
What The Texas Abortion Ban Does — And What It Means For Other States

The ruling in the Texas case was part of what court watchers have labeled the «shadow docket» — cases decided rapidly, as opposed to the deliberative process applied during the regular term, because the court considers them an emergency.

The number of cases deemed emergency has ballooned since the Trump era.

An analysis of the court’s current term, which ends Oct. 3, by Steve Vladeck, a professor at the University of Texas School of Law, found that the court handed down 68 orders on its shadow docket «from which at least one Justice publicly dissented.»

«In *none* of those dissents has a Justice to the right of the Chief Justice joined a Justice to his left,» Vladeck wrote on Twitter. «That’s stunning.»

Breyer told Totenberg that the court’s opinions overall are «more mixed than you suggest,» with liberal and conservative justices in agreement, but in reference to the shadow docket, he said: «It’s a huge mistake to decide major things without the normal full argument.»