Justice John Roberts joins the Supreme Court’s liberal wing in some key rulings

FOR A THIRD time in as many weeks John Roberts, America’s conservative chief justice, has sided with his liberal colleagues in a big case. After his votes on LGBT rights and immigrant protections, on June 29th he was the linchpin in a 5-4 decision striking down a law that would have limited abortion access in Louisiana. This brought cheers from liberals and howls from conservatives. Josh Hawley, a senator from Missouri and Chief Justice Roberts’s former clerk, called June Medical Services v Russo, the abortion decision, a “disaster” and accused his old boss (without naming him) of “perpetuat[ing] bad precedent while barely bothering to explain why.”

The precedent Mr Hawley deplores is Whole Woman’s Health v Hellerstedt, a decision in 2016 rejecting a Texas law that purported to protect women’s health while regulating about half of the state’s abortion clinics out of existence. Chief Justice Roberts is no fan of Whole Woman’s Health, either: he was among the dissenting trio of justices in the 5-3 ruling. This week in June Medical he repeated his disdain for the earlier decision, but explained that stare decisis—Latin for “let the decision stand”—required the court “to treat like cases alike”. Since the Louisiana...