Noah Feldman, Columnist

Trump's Threat to Abortion Rights Isn't Immediate

But it's real, should the makeup of the Supreme Court change further.

November 14, 2016 at 9:17 PM UTC

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People."

Maybe not now. But possibly soon.
Photographer: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

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Donald Trump’s comments on “60 Minutes” suggest that the president-elect has assimilated a version of the traditional moderate Republican position on abortion rights: call for the repeal of Roe v. Wade, while hoping that in practice, abortions will still be available somehow. The logic of this position is purely political. At least some of the Republican base wants abortion outlawed, but lots of people who voted for Trump would be extremely upset if they or a woman they cared about couldn’t actually get an abortion.

Will Trump’s comments lead to any immediate reduction in abortion rights, for example by encouraging new laws that target abortion providers? The short-term answer is probably not. The current Supreme Court justices have taken a strong stand against such laws, and states that passed them now would probably find them struck down. Overturning Roe is a long-term project.