Can Donald Trump Undermine Abortion Rights?

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump opposes abortion, but even he admits that overturning the Supreme Court’s 43-year-old decision in Roe v. Wade “has a long, long way to go.”

After Trump nominates a justice to replace the late Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court will remain one or two votes short of a majority to send abortion decisions back to the states, experts on both sides of the issue agree.

There are several reasons: The high court does not like to overrule its own precedents, particularly those that have stood for decades and affected millions of people. When it does, it tends to do so incrementally, which could mean allowing states to impose more restrictions on abortion without eliminating the federal right entirely.