Roe v. Wade turned 30 on January 22, 2003 - will the rights protected by this case survive 30? Here's why all of us - women and men, U.S. residents and overseas activists - need to watch the Supreme Court.

One vote on the Supreme Court decided our last presidential election. One vote upheld the right to choose abortion.

The Supreme Court-Our Country's Highest Judicial Authority

The Supreme Court is comprised of nine justices who are appointed to the bench for life, or until voluntary retirement. They are appointed by the President and must be confirmed by the U.S. Senate.

A Case's Path to the Supreme Court

While the Supreme Court may choose to hear cases directly, it most often selects cases that have been decided in lower courts. Participants in cases decided in lower courts can appeal to their state's highest or Supreme Court. If all state venues are exhausted, litigants may appeal to the United States Supreme Court, the highest court in this country. Some cases may begin in federal courts at the start, and these can also end up here.

The nine justices choose which cases to take from those submitted to the Supreme Court. They can refuse to consider a case, accept a case for oral argument, or decide the case summarily without a hearing. Each of these routes has an affect on the law: the decision not to hear a case allows a lower court's ruling to stand as precedent, or guiding law for other states. The court often decides that a case should be heard in circumstances in which two or more lower courts have decided differently. This "split" in the opinions of lower courts is common in highly charged issues such as abortion rights. In this circumstance, the court acts as final arbiter on a difficult issue.

The Final Decision-The Majority Rules

The Supreme Court cases that are heard for oral argument are decided by a majority of the justices accepting one theory or opinion of the elements of the case. Basically, the side with most votes wins; that's why most cases have numbers like 7-2 or 5-4 that let us know how many judges voted for or against a particular case. When there is no clear majority, the resulting decision is called a plurality opinion. It is the interpretation that receives more votes than any other opinion.

One justice usually writes the opinion for the majority, while others may write dissenting opinions collectively or on their own. Justices who sign on to either the majority or minority opinion may also add their own opinions, singularly and collectively, that augment the group opinion.

The 9 Justices-Roe's Support Hangs in the Balance

Today's Court is made up of justices nominated to the bench by Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton, and George w. Bush. The youngest justice, Roberts, is 50, the oldest, Stevens, 87. The current Court is closely divided between "conservative" and "liberal" elements, not only on the right to choose abortion, but also on other issues, such as freedom of religion, disability protection and gay rights. The "conservative" camp includes Justices Alito, Kennedy, Scalia, Thomas, and Chief Justice Roberts. While the "liberal" camp includes Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Souter, and Stevens.

Bush’s Appointees: Roberts and Alito

When looking at the members of the Court as either pro-choice or anti-choice, it basically divides the same way as the conservative and liberal factions, but Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito must be treated as a category of their own. Although they have upheld serious restrictions on abortion, they have not ruled or said anything of significance on the right to an abortion.

Sitting on the Fence: Kennedy

Justice Anthony Kennedy is as close as one gets to a swing vote on the Roberts Court. He has voted to uphold serious restrictions on abortion but has also upheld the basic right.

Justice Kennedy, however, has demonstrated that his support for the Roe decision is minimal at best, through his dissent in Stenberg v. Carhart, and most recently in his scathing majority opinion in Gonzales v. Carhart where he denies a women’s right to health. He also co-authored the plurality opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey that created the 'undue burden' standard for abortion restrictions. The 1992 Casey decision opened the door to waiting periods and forced parental consent requirements that serve no medical purposes and are only intended to dissuade women from exercising this right.

Rights Beyond Roe: The Far Reaching Influence of the Anti-Choice Movement

The composition of the Supreme Court is important for other areas of privacy law that also protect our access to contraception and the confidentiality of our medical histories. For example, The Center's case Ferguson v. City of Charleston challenged a scheme to arrest drug-addicted women and remove them from their children. The Center successfully argued that un-consented to urine searches violated Fourth Amendment protections against unlawful search and seizure. Rulings denying Medicaid coverage for abortions and prescription contraceptive coverage have both been challenged based on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Also, laws protecting our access to clinics and services by ensuring the safety of the men and women who staff health care facilities could be overturned by the court altering its interpretation of the First Amendment.

The Irony of Roe - Abortion Can Still Be Illegal

Technically, Roe v. Wade did not make abortion legal - instead, the decision set a legal precedent or standard that made most state laws restricting abortion illegal. The seven justices in the majority agreed that various elements of the constitution and the bill of rights constitute a right to privacy, already identified and articulated in previous decisions about medical care beginning in the previous century. The Court found that the right to choose abortion was protected by this constitutional right to privacy. States could therefore only restrict abortion when they had a compelling interest to do so, for example to protect women's heath. The Court did allow states to restrict abortion in the third trimester of pregnancy as long as any statute allowed for exceptions if a woman's health were in danger.

The effect of the ruling was to render most existing restrictions on abortion unenforceable. Most of these laws were not removed from state codes, however, and the overturn of the Roe decision would allow many of these to be enforced, leaving U.S. women with vastly different privacy rights depending on their state of residence.

Three Points to Remember: 1. Nine justices - The Court is divided on the issue of abortion. 2. The President chooses nominees - the Senate must approve, but the President often gets what he wants - and he has made clear his preferences. 3. One or two votes in the Roberts Court can take reproductive rights, women's rights, civil rights, the separation of church and state back thirty years and change the landscape of the Court for thirty years into the future. A 55-year old Bush appointee might still be on the Court in 2030 or beyond.