In June Medical Services, Louisiana is asking the Court to restrict both of these principles. It seeks a ruling that an abortion restriction is legitimate so long as a legislator might think that the restriction serves a valid purpose, rather than that the restriction actually serves a valid purpose. It also asks the Court to distinguish the Louisiana law from the Texas law on the ground that the Texas law closed more clinics and may have left a greater number of women greater distances from an abortion provider. If accepted, both of these arguments would leave Whole Woman’s Health technically intact, though states would nevertheless be able to enact restrictions that shut most if not all clinics in a given state. Doing so would also give the Court a chance to test the waters on whether there would be significant public backlash if the Court chooses to overrule an important decision on reproductive rights, which might influence the Court’s decision down the road on whether to overrule Roe itself.

Louisiana and its supporters have advanced several other arguments that likewise function as trial balloons on whether to overrule Roe. The state filed its own petition for certiorari in the case, which the Court granted along with the clinic’s petition. In the state’s petition, Louisiana asked the Court to overrule the doctrine that allows doctors and clinics to assert their patients’ constitutional rights. Generally, regulated parties (like the doctors in this case) can assert another person’s constitutional rights when the regulated party is the subject of a statutory penalty (as are the doctors who perform abortions without admitting privileges).

If the Court were to hold that abortion providers cannot challenge abortion restrictions, then finding plaintiffs to challenge abortion restrictions before the restrictions go into effect would become more challenging. That would also allow states to readily enforce laws that would close clinics, and those clinics might never reopen if a law is later invalidated. In this case, it would mean that Louisiana’s law (which reduces the number of doctors performing abortions in the state to one) would go into effect.

Read more: “The abortion debate needs moral lament”

In an amicus brief, Senator Josh Hawley, who has criticized judicial nominees for not being anti-abortion enough, has asked the Court to overrule the decision holding that an abortion restriction is invalid if it burdens a large fraction of women who are affected by the restriction. Louisiana echoed this argument in its brief as well. Instead it would have courts determine whether an abortion restriction burdens all women in a state. Under this logic, if a law left one clinic or one provider in one major metropolitan area, then the law might be allowed to stand. Again, it is not difficult to see the implications of this change in the law—more clinics would close.