Anti-abortion activists have worked for years to reshape the judiciary with judges who believe Roe v. Wade was wrongly decided. If they eventually convince a Supreme Court majority that the Constitution does not protect a woman's right to choose abortion, they'll focus next on state legislatures. This election gives reason to hope that most voters would reject their efforts to criminalize abortions.

The Supreme Court heard argument today in a case that asks whether a federal law prohibiting some medical procedures (the breadth of the law is a disputed issue in the case) violates the Constitution. Because it contains no exception when those procedures are needed to preserve the woman's health, the lower courts concluded that the law contravenes a woman's right to make important choices about her own life. That conclusion seems compelled by Supreme Court precedent, so the question is whether the addition of Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts (and the subtraction of their predecessors) will change the direction of the Court's abortion decisions. Justice Alito asked no questions during the two hour session, perhaps because he knew the press and public would scrutinize his words for clues to his thinking.

If the right to choose is at risk in the Supreme Court, the country's voice was strong in its opposition to anti-abortion positions yesterday. South Dakota voters rejected a sweeping criminalization of abortion that contains no exception when an abortion is needed to save the mother's life, while Kansas voters booted anti-abortion crusader Phill Kline out of his position as the state's attorney general.