The right to have an abortion in the United States could either be overturned entirely or whittled down enough to be meaningless by next summer, if Trump nominee Brett Kavanaugh becomes a Supreme Court Justice. Planned Parenthood has identified 13 cases now pending at the circuit court level, any of which could become the vehicle leading to the end of Roe v. Wade.
There are two cases before each of the 5th, 6th, and 11th circuits, three each before the 7th and 8th, and one at the D.C. Circuit. They run the gamut from requiring abortion providers to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital to requiring facilities to meet ambulatory surgical center standards. Included in the list are cases that could ban abortion because of the fetus' sex, race, disability, or even fetal abnormalities. The most common abortion procedure in the second trimester, dilation and evacuation—also the procedure often used to make sure a miscarriage is complete—is in danger of being banned. States are trying to make it impossible for minors to get abortions, and creating more and higher hurdles for women to jump in obtaining them, from ultrasounds to longer waiting periods.
Red states have been playing a game since the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision, which states that laws can't place an "undue burden" on the right to an abortion. That game has been to push the limits of what "undue" means. Kavanaugh has called Casey the "precedent upon precedent" in his non-answers on whether Roe is settled law. By continually invoking Casey, Kavanaugh was showing just how willing he is to help the forced birth movement broaden the definition of "undue" into nothing.
That's not the only code word he used in his testimony, however, and it's not just Roe and abortion rights we have to worry about; it's also Griswold v. Connecticut and our right to use contraception.