"The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear its first abortion case since President Trump’s appointments of two justices."

Adam Liptak reports (at the NYT).

The case [June Medical Services v. Gee] concerns a Louisiana law that its opponents say would leave the state with only one doctor in a single clinic authorized to provide abortions. And it is very likely to yield an unusually telling decision because, in 2016, the court struck down an essentially identical Texas law.

The vote in the 2016 decision [Whole Woman’s Health v. Hellerstedt] was 5 to 3, with Justice Anthony M. Kennedy joining the court’s four-member liberal wing to form a majority.... The federal appeals court in New Orleans upheld the Louisiana law last year notwithstanding the 2016 decision....

There was no evidence that the Texas law’s admitting-privileges requirement “would have helped even one woman obtain better treatment,” Justice Breyer wrote [for the majority in 2016]. But there was good evidence, he added, that the requirement caused the number of abortion clinics in Texas to drop to 20 from 40....

“Unlike Texas, Louisiana presents some evidence of a minimal benefit,” Judge Jerry E. Smith wrote for the majority [for the Court of Appeals in the new case]. In particular, he wrote, “the admitting-privileges requirement performs a real, and previously unaddressed, credentialing function that promotes the well-being of women seeking abortion.”...

The new case will give us a chance to see the effect of replacing Justice Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh. Kennedy was the deciding vote maintaining abortion rights. It's possible that this case won't do much, because it could be easily decided by saying the answer is determined by Hellerstedt. But perhaps the newly hardened conservative bloc will display its heft and do something conspicuously anti-abortion.

You can speculate about which political party is helped or hurt in the next election by the various possible outcomes.

Key facts: the Supreme Court chose to take on this case and the court below upheld the state's restriction on abortion. The Court had to take the case to keep it in line with Hellerstedt, so taking the case doesn't show enthusiasm for doing something striking.

NOTE: I rewrote the last sentence about a minute after hastily publishing (and noticing I'd said the opposite of what I wanted to say!).

AND: You can read Hellerstedt here. It was 5-3 because Justice Scalia had died and not yet been replaced. It's virtually certain that Scalia would have voted with the dissenters. With Gorsuch replacing Scalia and Kavanaugh replacing Kennedy, the expectation is that now there is a 5-4 vote against abortion rights just waiting to happen. Either the 5 will give — or begin to give — anti-abortion people what they've sought for half a century or they'll disappoint them.

I've got to expect that the conservative 5 will track the Court of Appeals and issue a minimalist decision that finds enough benefit to the law that it's not an undue burden on the right to have an abortion. The right survives, but legislative imposition on it also survives, and everyone is a satisfied enough to keep up the struggle that's been going on for half a century. Both political parties will be given enough footing to continue the usual abortion politics.

But if the Court strikes down the Louisiana law... well, why would that happen? You know why! It will be because John Roberts will see the value of the role Anthony Kennedy played all these years, and he will vote with the liberals. He'll say — I predict — that adherence to precedent is important and this case can't be distinguished from Hellerstedt and he'll leave the larger questions for another day. That would be the most stable outcome, the one with the least effect on 2020 electoral politics.