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What the Supreme Court may do next after overturning Roe · Apple News Today

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  Shumita Basu, Narrating: Good morning! It's Tuesday, June 28th. I'm Shumita Basu. This is "Apple News Today." Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
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  When the Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion, Justice Clarence Thomas wrote in his concurring opinion that the court should also reconsider other rulings that he called "demonstrably erroneous." Here's Amy Howe, co-founder of "SCOTUS Blog."
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  Amy Howe: So, there is a line of cases involving a right to privacy, the right to use contraception, the right to same-sex intimacy, the right to same-sex marriage. And many people are concerned that with the court's decision overruling Roe v. Wade that those cases could also be in danger.
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  Justice Thomas is targeting a legal concept called "substantive due process." It basically allows courts to protect rights even if they're not spelled out in the Constitution. Howe explains how some worry that the logic in the abortion case could be used to roll back other rights.
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  Howe: They would say, for example, applying the same reasoning that the court applied in Dobbs, there's not necessarily a history of a right to same-sex marriage or a right to same-sex intimacy and would use the same language to strike down those rights.
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  Now, Justice Samuel Alito specifically said in his majority opinion that it should not be used to "cast doubt" on precedents that do not concern abortion. But the court's three liberal justices wrote a dissent warning about what could happen to other rulings, saying "no one should be confident that this majority is done with its work."
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  Beyond the latest abortion case and its implications, court-watchers like Howe are focused on how the newest conservative justices are using their voting power to change the court.
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  Howe: We've seen two major cases already involving religion. One striking down a main law that barred public funding from going to private schools that provide religious instruction, and then another one on Monday involving a high school football coach who was fired for praying at midfield after the games. And in both of those cases, the court unquestionably moved the law to the right.
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  The court's conservatives also showed their power in a recent ruling expanding gun rights, and Howe says future cases that the court has lined up suggest that they're eager to do more.
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  Howe: They will hear oral arguments in the fall in the challenge to consideration of race in undergraduate admissions at Harvard and the University of North Carolina. They have already agreed to take up a lawsuit brought by a graphic designer who does not want to, because of her Christian beliefs, create wedding websites for same-sex couples. So, the Court is continuing to tee up these high-profile and potentially controversial decisions.
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  The Supreme Court is also set to rule this week on Biden v. Texas. This is the case that's about whether the Biden administration has to maintain the Remain in Mexico policy from the Trump era. It kept asylum seekers from Central America out of the United States while their cases were being processed. A fatal case of migrant smuggling is a reminder of just how relevant that court's ruling will be.
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  46 people were found dead inside a tractor-trailer in San Antonio yesterday. This is believed to be the deadliest human-smuggling incident of its kind in American history.
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  Temperatures inside the truck were extreme. San Antonio is experiencing its hottest June on record. Some survivors including children were taken to hospitals. Rescuers say that they were hot to the touch and suffering from heat exhaustion and stroke. They were badly in need of water, and they were too weak to get out of the truck on their own. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg spoke from near the scene.
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  Ron Nirenberg: The plight of migrants seeking refuge is always a humanitarian crisis, but tonight, we are dealing with a horrific human tragedy. So, I would urge you all to think compassionately and pray for the deceased.
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  Guatemalan officials say some of the victims are from that country, and there are indications that others may have been from Honduras. In recent years, millions of people have fled these countries and El Salvador, trying to escape poverty and violence. The Catholic archbishop of San Antonio wrote, "Once again, the lack of courage to deal with immigration reform is killing and destroying lives."
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  After the September 11th attacks, close to 200 pregnant women who were exposed to toxins in New York were monitored for a study. Dr. Rachel Yehuda wanted to see if these women developed post-traumatic stress disorder, and if so, what the long-term impact might be on themselves and their babies.
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  Dr. Rachel Yehuda: When these women gave birth at the seven-month wellness visit, we saw that many still had PTSD symptoms, and that if they did, they and their babies had lower cortisol levels.
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  That meant they had something in common with another cohort Dr. Yehuda had been studying, the children of Holocaust survivors. That led Dr. Yehuda and her team to conclude that trauma experienced by one generation can be passed down to the next. And she recently wrote about these findings for Scientific American.
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  Yehuda: We know that we inherit genes from our parents, and that a lot of our personality traits and a lot of our physical attributes are a result of the genes that are transmitted from our mothers and our fathers. But somehow, the experiences of our parents also seem to matter a lot, not just what's in the genetic code, but also what happened to them.
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  Many of the adult children of Holocaust survivors that Dr. Yehuda observed spoke about having this unsettling feeling. Grief, guilt, obligation.
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  Yehuda: There was some idea that the other shoe was about to drop. There was some idea that none of the good times were going to last, and that any minute, they would need to respond to a danger as their parents had.
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  Those dangers that a parent faced can actually change how their genes function, which can then get passed on to their children.
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  Yehuda: The idea of behavioral epigenetics is that there are environmental influences that can turn genes on and off. And so, it stands to reason that this overall design is meant to help facilitate our coping and adaptation. And to the extent that offspring also have some of these changes, many of these changes could be about achieving resilience or achieving greater coping and adaptation.
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  Dr. Yehuda says she hopes her research will help us realize that trauma isn't temporary. It's something that stays with us throughout our lifetimes and can even shape how our future kids deal with adversity.
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  Serena Williams is back on the court today for the first time in a year. Many people in the tennis world think this Wimbledon appearance could be one of her last. She about talked last year's tournament, coming back from the disappointment of getting hurt in the first round.
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  Serena Williams: Yeah, Wimbledon was tough last year. I was just… I felt like last year was tough. I felt like I was injured for most of the year, and then I ripped my hamstring. That was tough. I don't think anyone ever wants to do that.
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  In "Sports Illustrated," Jon Wertheim writes about all the ways Serena made tennis better. She and her sister Venus literally changed the makeup of the sport. It's more diverse now. More than half of the top 100 American women playing tennis are Black. Serena pushed tennis to embrace technology to make better line calls. She's pushed the boundaries of fashion in the sport, and she's been vocal about what it means to be one of the greatest athletes of all time and play through pregnancy and motherhood.
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  Wertheim points out Serena faces long odds at this year's Wimbledon. She's 40. She's facing much younger opponents. She hasn't played a professional match in about a year. But he says win or lose, her legacy is secure, and the setbacks underscore what's special about Serena Williams. She's both superhuman and still just human.
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  You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app, including coverage of a newly announced January 6th hearing, starting today at 1: 00 p.m. Eastern. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News+ partners. I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
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