Most people argue support or opposition for Roe v Wade without understanding what Roe v Wade says and what it does not say. So there can be significant legislative changes without impacting Roe v Wade.

But first, let us not waste time on ignorant comments uttered by pro abortion advocates that “men” are trying to somehow impose limits on what a woman can do with her body. There are very limited gender differences in how people feel about abortion, so why try to pretend its a “gender” issue. The very restrictive Alabama law was signed by the governor, who happens to be a woman and if it were put up to a vote by women only in Alabama, it would have passed.

Roe vs Wade at its core said life begins at conception, but an unborn baby did not accrue the benefits of “personhood” until it could survive outside the womb. This definition of “personhood” was determined by the Supreme Court in the absence of other definitions and was intended to avoid the “biological” argument of when life begins and rather establish the legal basis for when humans have “US civil rights” attached to them. The idea of human’s not having full US civil rights is well established in law (for example felons in many instances do not have the same rights as others including the right to own a gun).

At the same time, the Supreme Court established a woman’s right to privacy (for which the dissenting opinion was there is no Constitutional right to privacy). Therefore prior to that date of viability, the unborn baby has no “personhood” rights which include the right to life and as result the mother can exercise her right to have a private medical procedure (privacy rights) and the states had no “interest” to intervene on behalf of the unborn baby.

At the time, viability was around 28 weeks, that became the standard against which abortion laws were measured against. Recently, both liberals and conservatives, each of whom have states where they represent a majority of citizens have put forth legislation that attempts to either redefine “personhood”, establish the privacy rights of the mother to outweigh the right to life of an unborn baby in nearly all instances, etc.

But as it stands, even without overturning Roe v Wade, states could pass laws that simply affirm Roe v Wade and reduce the “abortion window” to the first 20 weeks instead of 28 weeks. It would be difficult for the Supreme Court not to affirm this, since it is entirely consistent with the logic behind the original Roe v Wade opinion. Even if the Supreme Court did not take the case, it does not mean the new law would not apply in the states in which it went into effect.

Also working against pro abortion advocates is emerging science, that unborn babies begin to experience pain in a manner similar to born babies at 20 weeks (some states now require doctors to anesthetize unborn babies at 20 weeks). Simply said, Roe v Wade based on current science screams for a 20 week cut-off and maybe slightly sooner.

Long before that the unborn baby does demonstrate neural responses to pain as early as 8 weeks but these responses are largely pain “reflexes like pulling your hand away from a hot stove without thinking about it. My bet is given the inability of the unborn baby to live outside the womb and the differences in how an unborn baby experiences pain early on in pregnancy vs after 20 weeks, it is unlikely that using Roe v Wade as the standard would reduce the window for abortions below 20 weeks.

So what about the other two arguments. Those women asserting there right to an abortion at any point for any reason are finding support in some liberal states, but more than 70% of Americans oppose this and it is unlikely the Supreme Court would affirm such laws as they conflict with Roe v Wade and would require the Supreme Court to arbitrarily change the definition of “personhood” or establish a hierarchy of individual rights (a very dangerous precedent).

Chances of that with a conservative Supreme Court or even a liberal one are slim, simply because if the Supreme Court arbitrarily changes the definition of “personhood” to when a baby is born or establishes that a woman’s right to privacy takes precedence over someone else’s life (which would be the case if the “personhood” definition is not changed, the Constitutional logic and the underlying “rights of all human” are no longer inalienable. So it is a far bigger problem than merely tinkering with abortion law. The problem with “common” law is that it does serve as the basis other cases which might have quite different facts and circumstances but rely on the same arguments.

But what about those states that want to grant citizenship rights at conception? Technically, they have a stronger argument than most people think. First, citizenship was initially a state prerogative and while it has been superseded by the Federal government there is case law to support the argument that states can determine who to grant and not grant citizenship to.

But I sense this is the area where the Supreme Court may shy away from issuing a clear cut opinion instead it would likely defer to Congress and say only Congress can change the “personhood” rights definition in order to avoid 50 different definitions of “personhood”.

Bottom line, I think abortions based on Roe vs Wade will become more restrictive but less so than pro life advocates would like to see and I think the idea of expanding the current 28 week window beyond 28 weeks for reasons other than the mother’s life being at risk or the baby’s viability coming into question because of an identified birth defect is unlikely under the current Supreme Court even if it were less conservative.

It may turn out in the future that pro life supporters will embrace Roe v Wade as medical technology and the development of the artificial womb begin to move the viability point to say 12 weeks. At that point, I think biological studies over the degree of brain function in an unborn baby will become the new standard for the “abortion” window rather than biological viability.

My response is not based on my personal views on the issue, but rather my observations and understandings from having managed in the past a very large women’s health physician group that included more than 50 OB/GYNs, several high risk OBs, and many neonatologists about the development of unborn babies and applying that knowledge to what I have read in the Roe v Wade opinion and using a consistent logic to come to a revised opinion based on the changing science.