Andrew Chung and Lawrence Hurley

WASHINGTON (Reuters] – Donald Trump, a month before being elected President in 2016, promised to nominate justices for the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade’s landmark ruling which allowed abortion to be legalized nationwide.

The three people he appointed – Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, as well as Amy Coney Barrett – may be close to fulfilling that promise, given their comments during arguments about the legality Mississippi’s restrictive abortion law.

Mike Davis is the head of the Article III Project legal organization that supported the Republican ex-president’s appointees to the Supreme Court. He was referring specifically to Wednesday’s arguments. “He did what he said he would.

Trump was able to appoint a third of current U.S. judges and half its conservative bloc during his four-year tenure. All three picks were based on a list of conservative lawyers.

Wednesday’s argument marked the first occasion that the court heard an instance in which Roe was specifically under attack. Trump’s appointed judges – Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett in 2017 and 2018, respectively – could be crucial in determining how far the court will go to roll back abortion rights. The six conservative justices expressed a willingness and ability to drastically curtail abortion rights, possibly even overturn Roe.

Trump stated in October 2016 that he was running for the presidency and said, “Well, if you put another two, perhaps three justices, that…will happen automatically in mine opinion, because I am putting prolife justices onto the court.”

This pitch appealed to the conservative Christian voters that helped him win his election and remain among his strongest supporters. Trump hasn’t yet indicated whether he would run for the presidency in 2024.

Jeanne Mancini of March for Life, which holds anti-abortion protests every year in Washington said that she believes it is possible to overturn Roe.

Mancini stated that while politics are only part of an effort to stop the abortion process, Mancini also said: “I’m very glad to President Trump [for the] decisions he made.”

Barrett’s appointment was particularly a boost for religious conservatives as well as anti-abortion advocates, and consolidated the court’s 6-3-tolerian supermajority. Barrett is a former law scholar and a Catholic devout.

RESPECTIVE PRECEDENT

Barrett, Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Kavanaugh expressed doubts throughout the argument about Roe’s legal basis or whether it was necessary to respect the Roe decision as a major, decades-old legal principle, called stare decisis. The principle is supported by those who believe it preserves the credibility and legitimacy of the court, avoiding any politicization and keeping law fair and balanced.

Gorsuch highlighted the weakness that abortion opponents see in the argument for keeping Roe. The 1992 decision Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, v. Casey, changed the law and restricted it. Also, the criteria to determine what restrictions states can enact over time has “evolved too.”

Kavanaugh emphasized American divisions regarding abortion. This is a viewpoint often held by abortion opponents. He suggested that the decision should rest with the people – the state legislatures and the U.S. Congress.

Kavanaugh stated that “The Constitution is neither pro-life or pro-choice regarding the issue of abortion.”

Barrett stated that Roe is not an “super-precedent” and should be reaffirmed during the Senate confirmation hearings. Barrett suggested that it should be more difficult for certain precedents to be overturned than others during Wednesday’s arguments.

The woman also asked her if recent adoptions of “safe-haven” laws that allow mothers to give unborn children to medical facilities for free, undermining certain justifications. This is because they are not forcing women into becoming motherhood simply by having babies.

In 1992 Casey, the Supreme Court came within inches of overturning Roe. Its moderates gathered and supported abortion rights.

This time, the outcome might be different due to decades of effort from conservative legal activists to reform the court. Also, thanks to remarkable political maneuvering by Mitch McConnell (a key Republican senator), this could have been a very different outcome.

Trump was given a Supreme Court vacancy because McConnell at the time, Senate majority leader and then McConnell refused to take into consideration Democratic President Barack Obama’s nominee in 2016. McConnell then moved for the Senate to confirm Barrett quickly last year, a week prior to the election. This was to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg (a champion of abortion rights), who died in November 2016.

Roe v. Wade established that a woman has the right under the U.S. Constitution to have her personal privacy. Lower courts blocked Mississippi’s Republican-backed law of 2018 banning abortion after 15 weeks. The ruling is expected by the end June.