Supreme Court Approval Hits a Historic Low 100 Days After the End of Roe v. Wade

On June 24, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) voted to overturn Roe v. Wade, upending a 50-year precedent protecting Americans' access to abortion as a federal right. Since that ruling, at least 14 states have fully banned abortion, while others have banned abortion after six, 15, 18, or 20 weeks of pregnancy.

Following the overturning of Roe v. Wade, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote the opinion that other landmark rulings, such as the right to contraception access, same-sex marriage, and same-sex relationships should also be reconsidered. Since then the popularity of the SCOTUS has faltered.

According to a poll released on Thursday, almost 100 days after the SCOTUS overturned Roe v. Wade, just 47% of Americans said they have a “fair amount” of trust in the judicial branch. Those approval ratings are down 7% from last year and 20% from two years ago.

The SCOTUS is now made up of six conservative justices including Samuel Alito, 72, Clarence Thomas, 74, Neil Gorsuch, 55, Brett Kavanaugh, 57, Amy Coney Barrett, 50, and John Roberts, 67. The three liberal justices are Elena Kagan, 62, Stephen Breyer, 84, and Sonia Sotomayor, 68. Sotomayor is viewed as the “most liberal” justice by political scientists Andrew Martin and Kevin Quinn based on their test known as the Martin-Quinn score. Thomas, the second Black justice to serve on the court, was ranked by their test as the “most conservative”.

Only 25% of Democrats trust the SCOTUS a “great deal” or a “fair amount” since the court’s political pendulum swung sharply to the right. A year ago, 50% of Democrats had a “great deal or fair amount” of trust in the SCOTUS. However, the overturning of Roe v. Wade appears to have upended that trust.

The SCOTUS is currently the most conservative it has been in 90 years, producing more conservative decisions during their current term compared to any other time since 1931, according to statistics collected by Lee Epstein, a professor of Washington University in St. Louis, and Keven Quinn, a professor at the University of Michigan.

In addition to overturning Roe v. Wade, the court also issued a broad opinion which loosened restrictions on guns in New York just weeks after the school shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where 19 students and two teachers were killed.

A week prior to their relaxed ruling on gun safety in New York, the SCOTUS justices and their families received extra security protection signed into law by President Joe Biden after its approval in the U.S. Senate and the House. The decision to provide the justices with around-the-clock security came after a man carrying a gun, knife, and zip ties was arrested near Kavanaugh’s home in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with the alleged intention of killing the justice.

In June, the SCOTUS justices also ruled to restrict the Environmental Protection Agency’s power in regulating carbon emissions, despite the current climate change crisis which has hit the planet at a greater speed than scientists originally predicted a decade ago, and is destroying communities, including those in the U.S., with severe weather patterns, extreme heat and flooding.

“The Supreme Court is at an important moment,” said Julian Zelizer, a professor of history and public affairs at Princeton. “Trust in the institutions has vastly diminished, certainly among Democrats, and many have a close eye on how they rule on other vital matters. If decisions seem to keep coming from a very pointed political direction, frustration and calls for reform will only mount.”