The Indiana law — which prohibited abortion because of the gender, race or disability of the fetus, such as Down syndrome — was blocked by lower courts and is one of three significant anti-abortion state statutes that are sitting one level below the Supreme Court. If Indiana appeals this fall, and the justices accept the case, it could be the opening for a broader ruling on Roe v. Wade that could redefine abortion rights nationwide.

Pence could then take double credit for the anti-abortion movement’s ascendancy: The politician whose evangelical credentials helped carry conservative religious voters to President Donald Trump also helped deliver the high court case that could scale back access to abortion 45 years after Roe.

Throwing Roe into the “ash heap of history,” as Pence put it, has been his defining mission, the core of a political career that took him from Congress to the governor’s mansion to the vice presidency.