Noah Feldman, Columnist

Clarence Thomas Tries and Fails to Start a Climactic Abortion Fight

The Supreme Court sidesteps the issue in Indiana’s ban on selective abortions, but the conservative justice wants you to know he thinks eugenics are at work.

May 28, 2019 at 4:32 PM UTC

By Noah Feldman

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."

The battle lines are drawn.
Photographer: Anna Moneymaker/Bloomberg

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Abortion rights aren’t appreciably more in danger after Tuesday’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling on two Indiana laws than they were before. But it’s clear that the drums are beating — and judicial war over abortion is coming, like it or not.

The court upheld an Indiana law that says fetal remains can’t be “incinerated” with other medical waste but may be simultaneously “cremated.” Seven of the nine justices agreed with this judgment, signaling that the court’s liberals (except Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) didn’t want a fight over the law. Avoidance was made easier by the fact that abortion-rights activists did not claim the law unduly burdened a woman’s right to choose.