The morning after the closely fought midterm elections, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear its first major abortion case in six years.
The hot-button issue has been debated for years among social and religious activists, voters and judges themselves.
At issue in Wednesday's arguments is the constitutionality of a federal law banning a specific late-term procedure its critics call "partial-birth" abortion. (Watch a new Supreme Court meet an old hot-button issue -- 2:16 Video)
After Justice Samuel Alito replaced Sandra Day O'Connor this year, court watchers have been waiting for a pair of cases to signal whether the court is shifting to the right.
For a quarter of a century, O'Connor, the first woman on the high court, was a key swing vote upholding the basic right to abortion. The views of Alito, a more conservative jurist, could prove crucial in the new debate. So, too, could the views of moderate-conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy, who takes O'Connor's place as the key swing vote.
"This case will test how far the government can reasonably go in outlawing so-called 'partial birth' abortion," said Thomas Goldstein, a leading appellate attorney and Supreme Court legal analyst.
"But we'll be able to take the temperature of the justices based on their questions, the opinions they write, whether they've moved one more vote toward overruling Roe v. Wade," he added. "They may well be very close."
New justices, old issue
Even with Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts joining the bench in recent months, many legal scholars say the outcome is far from clear.
Read More
