Getting out of the fray over abortion is proving easier said than done for the U.S. Supreme Court.
The recent showdown over the abortion pill mifepristone offers a glimpse of the legal fights likely to land at the court in the coming years. Brewing debates over travel restrictions, emergency hospital procedures and mail delivery of drugs threaten to make abortion a recurring part of the court’s docket.
"There’s just no chance the court is going to get out of this for good, and I’m not entirely convinced they want to,” said Mary Ziegler, a University of California, Davis, law professor who wrote a book on the history of U.S. abortion law.