Democrats say the new justice could shift the court’s balance to 6-3 in favor of conservatives and lead to the overturning of the Roe v. Wade abortion ruling, the ending of the Affordable Care Act, and restriction of LGBTQ rights. “The court plays an outsize role in constitutional law,” says Saikrishna Prakash, the James Monroe Distinguished Professor of Law at the UVA School of Law. “These nine people decide what our Constitution means.”