Washington —
The U.S. Supreme Court wrapped up on Thursday one of its most consequential terms in recent history, having done away with nationwide abortion rights, eviscerated a form of gun control and tackled other controversial issues in a string of polarizing and ideologically split decisions.
As the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court routinely issues opinions of great weight that affect people's daily lives.
But this term will be remembered as one of the most momentous, in no small measure because the high court for the first time in five decades declared that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right.
The June 24 abortion ruling was a bombshell, even though a draft of the majority opinion had been leaked weeks before, hailed by social conservatives as a victory and denounced by liberals as an assault on women's reproductive rights.
It also demonstrated the enduring legacy of former President Donald Trump's three Supreme Court nominations during his four years in office.
Trump came to office in 2017 with the court evenly split 4-4 between conservative and liberal justices, as the seat of the late Justice Antonin Scalia had yet to be filled in the nine-member body.
By the end of Trump's term four years later, conservatives held a commanding 6-3 majority.
Supreme Court justices like to say they're above politics, pointing out that many, if not most, of their decisions are unanimous or near unanimous, backed by conservative and liberal justices alike. That used to be true but is no longer the case.
The court is issuing fewer unanimous decisions. The percentage of unanimous decisions has dropped from 49% in 2016 to 28% this most recent term, according to Adam Feldman, a Supreme Court scholar and creator of the Empirical SCOTUS blog. Meanwhile, the percentage of 6-3 ideological rulings edged higher as the court took on a slew of hot-button issues.
But Feldman said what is more important is how the conservative majority approaches contentious issues. With a six-vote, defection-proof supermajority, the conservative bloc "is bolder in the types of cases it takes because the justices know they have the numbers to win," Feldman said. "Even if (Chief Justice) Roberts, (Justice Neil) Gorsuch, or (Justice Brett) Kavanaugh swing in a case, you would need at least two of them to go the other direction (for conservatives) to lose. That didn't happen in any really significant cases this term."
Meanwhile, the White House has been up in arms over some of the Supreme Court's decisions issued in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, President Joe Biden called the Supreme Court's abortion ruling "destabilizing" and "outrageous," voicing support for ending the Senate's filibuster rule to codify abortion rights in legislation.
On Thursday, the president said the Supreme Court's landmark ruling that the Environmental Protection Agency lacked the authority to reduce gas emissions at power plants was "another devastating decision that aims to take our country backwards."
Republicans have hailed and defended the court rulings. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who played an instrumental role in getting Trump's Supreme Court nominees confirmed, criticized what he called Biden's "attacks on the court as unmerited and dangerous."
Here is a look at four notable decisions of the term:
This was by far the most significant decision of the term, if not of the past generation.
In a 6-3 ruling on June 24, the Supreme Court overturned its landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, saying the U.S. Constitution does not guarantee the right to have an abortion.
The ruling does away with nearly half a century of Supreme Court precedent. But conservative Justice Samuel Alito wrote that the long-standing principle of adherence to precedent is "not a straitjacket" and that Roe was "egregiously wrong and deeply damaging."
Roberts, who voted with the majority, nonetheless said he would have favored a "narrower decision," calling the majority opinion "a "serious jolt to the legal system."
The court's three dissenting liberal justices slammed the majority ruling as a "curtailment of women's rights, and of their status as free and equal citizens."
The decision leaves it to the states to set their own abortion laws. Twenty-six states are expected to restrict or ban abortion, according to a research group, forcing women to travel long distances to other states to undergo the procedure.