Professor Aimée Kahan said in a May 15 interview with Radio Canada that the recently enacted Alabama law that bans abortion in most instances is unlikely to come before the U.S. Supreme Court.  (Interview begins at 6:53).

“What the proponents of the law are hoping is that the case will make its way all the way up to the Supreme Court and that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe,” Kahan said in the interview, which was conducted in French. “That is very unlikely to happen, because the Supreme Court does not have to hear cases it does not want to hear.” 

A more likely scenario, Kahan said, “is a gradual chipping away” at Roe v. Wade.  

Kahan noted that there may be news from the Supreme Court as soon as Monday if it plans to hear a case involving a law in Indiana that requires women seeking abortions to first undergo an ultrasound and an 18-hour waiting period. The law also requires fetal remains to be buried or cremated instead of disposed of as medical waste.  

“These challenges to abortion rights mean that it is much more likely that there will be an incremental erosion of rights rather than a flat-out reversal” of Roe, Kahan said.  

Kahan, who teaches Bioethics and Appellate Advocacy, is a member of the International Academic Network on Bioethics, based at the University of Rennes I in France, made up of academics from around the world.