John Roberts-67 years old
Clarence Thomas-74
Stephen Breyer-83
Samuel Alito-72
Sonia Sotomayor-67
Elena Kagan-62
Neil Gorsuch-54
Brett Kavanaugh-57
Amy Coney Barrett-50
Five justices voted to overturn Roe V Wade and they were Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett.
Stephen Breyer is also retiring and will be replaced with Ketanji Jackson Brown, which happens later this summer and she is 51.
To bring back Roe V Wade, it’d take just one justice to flip their decision.
To get an idea of when an opportunity for this could happen, lets look at the list of the most recent justices to retire.
Stephen Breyer-Retired this year at age 83.
Anthony Kennedy-Retired in 2018 at age 82.
John Paul Stevens-Retired in 2010 at age 90.
David Souter-Retired in 2009 at age 70.
Sandra Day O’Connor-Retired in 2006 at age 76.
Of the last five, the average retirement age of justices was 80.2 years old.
Which none of the current justices hit the age of 80 for another six years.
There’s also the possibility of a justice dying of natural cause, but that’s again unlikely to happen where Ginsburg lived to be 87 and Scalia was 79. Both of those justices having had severe health issues prior.
This makes the case to actually see Roe V Wade brought back anytime soon extremely low.
Three of the five votes to overturn are under 60 and it’s possible all three can be there another 30-40 years.
Also, neither Thomas or Alito are in poor health and both realistically can be here another 10-20 years. It’s also very likely Alito/Thomas will be willing to retire with the next Republican president and that president could appoint people younger than Barrett in place, if the senate if Republican controlled.
The senate now is 50/50, with Democrats getting majority status due to Joe Biden being president, where Kamala Harris becomes president of the senate and is the tie breaker vote.
This year, I’d put a 55% chance Republicans can claim an extra senate seat and get control.
Georgia
Arizona
Nevada
All possible for the GOP to win in, with the DNC having okay odds at Pennsylvania and Ohio for bringing them Democrat.
This makes the case that even if Alito or Thomas retired randomly or passed away, the democrats having the ability to replace them is unlikely.
Expand the senate.
Which technically, Democrats can do this right now and if they can get every Democrat senator on board, there is nothing the GOP can do and Roe V Wade could return before the end of the year.
That’d involve all 50 DNC senators voting to add more members to the Supreme Court and Joe Biden appoints pro choice people.
One-It’ll never get done.
Joe Manchin will never vote for that and I’d expect 5-15 DNC senators quietly wouldn’t support it either. The votes just aren’t there.
Two-It’ll be a living nightmare.
If Democrats did that, the GOP the moment they’d get a Republican president and senate would do the exact same thing.
It’d quite literally make the Supreme Court worthless and we’d eventually get a 100 person Supreme Court that means nothing.
Roe V Wade is overturned and that’s a sad thing for many, but there are facts.
One fact is for 85% of abortions, they are in states at zero risk of banning it.
The second thing is there is money being raised for people to travel out of state for an abortion, along with companies adding it to benefit plans.
The third is new technology. I spoke to a friend who is a partner at a pretty high level VC fund earlier today saying they might invest heavily into a startup focused on home abortion tech, which could be only a few years from market.
Roe V Wade is overturned and bringing it back could take decades. That said though, this isn’t the thing to end abortion access in the US and other options will exist.
