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Lawyers Ready Suit Over Soda; Case Being Built Linking Obesity To Sale in Schools
The issue that roils every Supreme Court nomination -- abortion -- returned to the high court today for the first time in five years, with a new chief justice on the bench and the scope of abortion rights in America potentially at stake. The case at hand involves a New Hampshire law that requires pregnant teenagers to tell their parents before ending a pregnancy. It does not focus on the central premise of Roe v. Wade: that the Constitution guarantees the right to abortion. But with new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. in charge and Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the court's key voice on the abortion issue, about to retire the case gives the court the chance to redraw the limits that states can set on abortion. In this case and others that follow, some foresee an erosion of abortion rights. "You're more likely to see an accelerated chipping away than an outright reversal of Roe," said Lucinda M. Finley, a law professor at the University at Buffalo. In addition to possibly setting a guidepost for future abortion regulations, the New Hampshire case will provide the clearest signals yet regarding how Roberts the Buffalo-born judge who became chief justice two months ago feels about abortion rights. "It will be very interesting to see what he does with the standard of review," said Blake M. Cornish, legal director for NARAL Pro-Choice America, the nation's largest abortion rights group.
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