Abortion, guns, religion top a big Supreme Court term

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

60% : The state excludes religious schools from a tuition program for families who live in towns that don't have public schools.
55% : The future of abortion rights is in the hands of a conservative Supreme Court that is beginning a new term Monday that also includes major cases on gun rights and religion.
52% : With abortion, guns and religion already on the agenda, and a challenge to affirmative action waiting in the wings, the court will answer a key question over the next year, said University of Chicago law professor David Strauss.
50% : In early November, the court will take up a challenge to New York restrictions on carrying a gun in public, a case that offers the court the chance to expand gun rights under the Second Amendment.
47% : Jeff Wall, a top Justice Department lawyer under Trump, said the court could sharply expand gun rights and end the use of race in college admissions, but only abortion is likely to move public perception of the court.
47% : Until Barrett came along, some justices who favor gun rights questioned whether Chief Justice John Roberts would provide a fifth, majority-making vote "for a more expansive reading of the Second Amendment," said George Washington University law professor Robert Cottrol, who said he hoped the court would now broaden gun rights.
44% : Affirmative action is not yet on the court's agenda, but it could still get there this term in a lawsuit over Harvard's use of race in college admissions.
42% : Lower courts blocked the law because it is inconsistent with high court rulings that allow states to regulate but not prohibit abortion before viability, the point around 24 weeks of pregnancy when a fetus can survive outside the womb.
41% : Mississippi is taking what conservative commentator Carrie Severino called a "rip-the-Band-Aid-off" approach to the case by asking the court to abandon its support of abortion rights that was laid out in Roe and the 1992 case of Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
41% : "I still don't think that's going to create some groundswell in the public, unless it's accompanied by some kind of watershed ruling on abortion," Wall said.
39% : No issue is bigger than abortion.
36% : The case has gun control advocates worried.
35% : Mississippi is among 12 states with so-called trigger laws that would take effect if Roe is overturned and ban abortion entirely.

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