It seems, though, that not everyone on the Court was oblivious to the importance.
Justice Clarence Thomas went off on a number of points regarding the Court’s refusal. It also seems that some seem to think they understand the law better than Thomas.
A favorite (and often unconvincing) device of both liberals and conservatives is to compare abortion regulations with gun control laws. The rights at hand are both grounded in the Bill of Rights; however, abortion is read into the amendments while gun control is enumerated in the text of the document. Critically, both are legally regulable to some degree. Remember that phrase “well regulated”? That neither the right to have an abortion nor the right to bear arms is absolute is common ground. But the two are not exactly parallel, given the very different practical impacts involved: bearing arms is not quite the same as bearing children. Clarence Thomas, though, was happy to offer up the willfully obtuse argument that New Jersey’s gun law should fail, because the same rules could not be applied to abortions: