The KEY will be how far they will go to be “protectors of the institution” (SCOTUS) above being protectors of the Constitution.
If the SCOTUS judges make more than they should about the condition referred to as “precedent” - as Roberts makes so important - then the best we might get is some more “jiggering” of how far states can go in regulating abortion, but not an abandonment of Roe.
ONLY by NOT emphasizing precedent as a MUST BE PRIORITY, can the SCOTUS approach abandoning Roe. We will just have to wait and see.
To me the entire matter of the SCOTUS ever putting as much emphasis as it as on “precedent” would be akin to each Congress acting like it’s hands were tied by what any previous Congress had decided; believing they could not overturn laws previous Congresses had enacted. That makes no sense and neither does the SCOTUS over reliance on precedent.
Each session of the SCOTUS should see itself as a new SCOTUS just as each session of Congress sees itself as a new Congress, and each presidential administration sees itself as a new presidency.
But with the SCOTUS there has become an attitude that each new SCOTUS must “protect” at all cost, what any prior SCOTUS decided, and in my eyes that has put that protection, of their institutional reputation, above seeing anew the mandate to protect the Constitution first. No SCOTUS should ever be afraid of, or against, saying a prior SCOTUS got it wrong.
You are 100% correct. The function of the Supreme Court should be to make changes to things that violate the Constitution. “That it’s gone on for a long time” is like saying we’re on that slippery slope and we don’t WANT to turn back.