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In short, the 49 years since Roe was decided have seen modern science, technology, and prenatal medicine shift the “viability line” from the 28 weeks typical in 1973 to as few as 21 weeks now. With sophisticated care provided in a modern hospital’s neonatal units, it is possible today for a developing fetus to survive outside the womb at least a month and a half earlier than was the case in 1973. Sotomayor and her colleagues will have to decide what bearing that has on the legality of Mississippi’s law, which bans abortions after 15 weeks. This much, however, is clear: The Supreme Court’s abortion jurisprudence is scientifically out of date, and the gap is widening. (Jeff Jacoby, 12/15)

America’s fragile mental health safety net all too often leaves people nowhere to turn but the police when a loved one is in the midst of a behavioral health or suicide crisis. The 988 system, a new alternative to calling 911, could change that, but states are lagging behind in implementing it. (Margarita Alegria, 12/15)

Much ire has been directed at the Lanterman-Petris-Short Act, signed into law in 1967 by Gov. Ronald Reagan to provide for treatment of people unable to see to their own needs, while ensuring that they retain their right to self-determination to the greatest extent possible. LPS, as it is known, creates several steps of intrusion into a person’s life — ostensibly for the person’s own good and the good of others — beginning with the so-called “5150 hold” that permits police and other authorities to take a person into custody for up to 72 hours for evaluation and crisis intervention. (12/14)