Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every day we bring you insight and analysis into the most important legal news of the day. You can find more episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcast. In a ruling today, the Supreme Court left in place a block on an Indiana law that barred abortions based on race, sex, or disability, but made the first move toward giving states more power
to regulate abortion. Joining me as Bloomberg New Supreme Court reporter Greg store So, Greg, tell us about these Indiana laws and what the court decided. Yeah, June, as you said, the law had two different components to it. One, uh, just said that clinics, when they perform an abortion, have to dispose of the aborted feat us either by burying
it or by cremation. And then the second provision had to do with um selective abortions, and it it said that if your sole reason for having an abortion was because of a risk of a genetic disorder or because of the sex or or race of the fetus, that that was that was illegal. Um. The Supreme Court came out differently on those two questions, reinstated the first the first provision, and allowed the other provision to the lower court ruling that struck down the other provision to stand well.
Should the fact that the Supreme Court split the decisions make some pro abortion rights activists feel a little better. I'm not sure I would say that's the case. Um. The Supreme Court is going to have an awful lot of abortion cases to choose from. Uh. It's still quite likely the Court will take up a big and important abortion case UH sometime in the next term. There are a few penning ones, which we can talk about in
a minute. Perhaps the fact that the Court reached out and summarily upheld this one provision involving fetal disposal, UM, I think should be a sign of something that abortion rights advocates should be concerned about. It is the Court's new conservative majority flexing its muscles a little a little bit on this controversial topic. Is it surprising, then, that only two Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonya Soto Mayor, indicated disagreement with the ruling. Yeah, that's I don't know
if I would say it's a surprise. It's certainly very noteworthy. UM. Justice Brier and Justice Kegan, two other liberals, are certainly abortion rights supporters. Uh. They are also the two justices on the left who tend to be more willing to compromise to perhaps join an opinion, um if they can can improve some of the wording in it, some of the language in it. Uh, And they try to work
together with Chief Justice John Roberts when they can. Uh. They apparently made a tactical decision in this case, or seemingly made a tactical decision in this case that there wasn't anything to be gained from dissenting, and perhaps behind the scenes, Uh, they did change some of the wording in the opinion so that it was a bit narrower than it might have been. Let's talk about some of
the other cases. We've been talking about. A case involving transgender students access to bathrooms before the Court, and the Justice has decided not to take that case. Any indication why, Yeah, they didn't give any indication why on this one. Uh, this was a case where uh, non transgender students said their rights were being violated, their constitutional privacy rights were
being violated because the school was letting transgender students. The school district was letting transgender students UH use the bathroom that corresponded with UH their gender identity. UH. The Supreme Court did not make any comments in ejecting this appeal. They just turned it away. There was, on the surface of it, there wasn't a compelling reason for them to take it. There wasn't one of these cases where lower
courts are in disagreement about it. UH. And UH, it's perhaps not too surprising that the Court wanted to deduct this particular hot button issue. They are going to take up transgender rights in another context in the upcoming term. Yeah, that's that's a good point. They are going to hear a couple of cases involving job discrimination and whether federal job bias law UH protects gay and transgender workers. That
law says you can't discriminate on the basis of sex. UH. And in both cases, UH, lower courts are in some disagreement as to whether UH that covers discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and discrimination on the basis of gender identity. That will be one of the biggest, if not the biggest case case the court here is next term. Now,
tell us about this case. The Justice has decided to take about whether the parents of a Mexican teenager can sue the American law enforcement agent who shot the teenager from across the border. Yeah, this case might sound familiar to people. The Court has had it before. They kicked it back to the lower court. Um, it's a it's a as he said, a Mexican teenager. He was on the Mexican side of the border. Uh, they were playing.
He was in a culvert where the middle of the culvert is the actual border, but there's a fence on the U s side. And he and his friends apparently were playing a game where they would ramp to the U side, touched the fence, and come back down. A border patrol officer agent came upon them. Uh, there was an incident, Um, and he ended up shooting the book boy, Sergio Hernandez. Uh. The question for the Supreme Court is
basically whether his family can sue. There is a legal doctrine known as Bibbins where the Supreme It has said, Um, you can just sue directly under the Constitution for a violation of your rights. In some context. That's not a doctrine that the Supreme Court. This more conservative Supreme Court has suggested it likes very much. Uh So, the question is whether this this uh, this particular form of lawsuit known as the biddin's lawsuit can apply in this case.
Just about forty five seconds here, it's approaching this busy time of year for you. What Supreme Court decision are you awaiting? Most? Let me give you two if I could. The one that's certainly got a lot of attention is the question of the case involving whether the Trump administration can put a question about citizenship on the census. The core question for the court is basically whether the administration
was upfront about its reasons for doing so. And then the court has two cases, two very big cases involving partisan jurymandering, and the Court could finally tell us whether or not, uh it can ever be the case that that there's too much partisanship in the voting district uh map drawing process. The Supreme Court has never struck down a district as being two partisan. And we'll see whether or not they're ready to do that. All right, Thanks, Greg,
get some sleep, you'll need it. That's Supreme Court reporter of Greg's Stewart. Thanks for listening to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on bloomberg dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brasso. This is Bloomberg Ye.