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[It is far from clear when, or if, the measure will take effect. Read about the next steps.]

Nor in all likelihood will it have to.

Lower courts will almost certainly strike down the Alabama statute and other direct bans on abortion, like the ones that ban the procedure after doctors can detect what the measures call a “fetal heartbeat,” which happens at around six weeks of pregnancy. The lower courts will have little choice, as controlling Supreme Court precedents prohibit outright bans on abortion until the fetus is viable outside the womb, usually at about 24 weeks.

Since the Supreme Court controls its own docket, it can simply deny review after lower courts strike down laws squarely at odds with Roe.

To be sure, recent changes on the court have given opponents of abortion rights fresh hope for a wholesale reconsideration of Roe. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who retired last year, had been a cautious supporter of abortion rights and was an author of the key opinion in 1992 in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, which both reaffirmed and modified the core of Roe, announcing that states may not impose “undue burdens” on abortion rights.