[tracker1]

A lot of that comes down to having a large standing govt bureaucracy to begin with. Even a lot of State govts are too big, with a lot of political appointees embedded in the systems and hard to displace. It's not just the SC, it's legislative and executive bodies that are entrenched.

As to abortion, the original SC decision on Roe v Wade was probably incorrect from a US Constitution level, the more recent decision kicked it back to the States. The States are no reeling from laws that haven't been addressed in at least half a century as well as a US Congress that is ill inclined to actually act. It's something that could have been codified for years. The Democrats have had a majority in both houses of Congress and the White House a few times, Obama even promised as much his first term and didn't deliver.

The issue, is that most would agree there should be some limit to how late an a voluntary abortion should be generally allowed. The vocal minorities on both sides push the extremes.