ABSTRACT
The Supreme Court, the highest court in the United States, is the final interpreter of whether the laws and actions of the US government, states, subdivisions, and its citizens are permissible under the US Constitution. The US Congress set the present size of the Supreme Court, nine justices, in 1869. One of the Supreme Court's most controversial decisions was Roe v. Wade, 410 US 113, which protected women's right to abortion choice as part of the right to privacy. The president appoints Supreme Court justices and other federal judges subject to the advice and consent of the US Senate. Justices leave the Court only through resignation, death, or impeachment by the US House of Representatives and trial and conviction by the Senate. The Court's work has also expanded with its definition of new individual rights and its expansion on limits on government power through interpretation of the Constitution and its amendments.
