During his confirmation to the Supreme Court, Chief Justice John Roberts said something that sounds incredibly optimistic for a jurist of his reputation and experience. “Judges are like umpires,” he told the members of the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee. “Umpires don’t make the rules. They apply them. The role of an umpire and a judge is critical. They make sure everybody plays by the rules. But it is a limited role. Nobody ever went to a ballgame to see the umpire.”

But when it comes to abortion-related policy, including even the funding of abortions, the courts have been a battleground on which judges side often in favor of abortion and the vendors profiting from their sale. The umpires seem to have chosen a team. This is all the more troubling as court watchers eagerly track cases headed right now to the high court.