Roe vs. Wade Under Romney/Ryan (Supposedly)

     After reading the editorial: If Roe v. Wade Goes on The New York Times online newspaper, several questions were brought to my mind:
     1. Could a president actually overturn a Supreme Court decision?
     2. Why would Romney retract his past support for Roe v. Wade, especially when he had such a touching   story?
     I'll come back to these questions, but first I'd like to explain what the editorial claims. From the beginning, Romney/Ryan are made as opponents to abortion by Ryan's "essential" answer in last weeks debate that abortion supporters should be scared. Now, Ryan never uttered this word for word, but the editor seems to think this. However, the editor does give Romney/Ryan a grain of approval when he says that they will sway from the extreme Republican platform by allowing abortion in the cases of rape/incest/the life of the woman. The editor continues by describing the effects of reversing Roe v. Wade; the decision of abortion would be up to the states, and an extremely low number of states would actually allow it. In turn, he claims that the health problems that were evident before abortion was legal would resurface, and many women may even turn to self-aborting or going to illegal practices. The culmination to his attack on Romney/Ryan is the recount of Romney's past support of abortion, and the elaboration of his plans to take down everything the family he was touched by supported.
     It seems to me that the author is targeting the unsure voters - the people who are caught in the middle of the two parties. By arguing that Romney/Ryan will do away with abortion, the author helps convince the abortion supporters to vote for Obama and Biden. However, even though Romney/Ryan want to get rid of abortion, they have to jump some serious loops to receive their wish. According to Ed Grabianowski's 10 Overturned Supreme Court Cases, there are two ways to retract a Supreme Court Ruling:
     1) States can amend the Constitution themselves by receiving approval by three-quarters of the state legislatures.
     2) The Supreme Court can overrule itself.
     The author claims Romney will seek to do the latter by reappointing new Supreme Court Justices, but even then it seems far-fetched to me. This would require Romney's appointed justice(s) along with the residing justices to reach a majority rule decision in the opposite direction it has been the last 39 years. Overall, the author provides good points that would turn the opinions of readers who don't look further into the details, but the editorial as a whole is too rash and quick to make decisions in my opinion.
     As a side note, the story about Romney and his past support for abortion involves a close relative who died from illegal abortion complications, and how her parents asked for money to be donated to Planned Parenthood. Evidently, Romney has vouched to retract federal funds to this organization, much like his retraction of abortion support. It's hard to discern Romney's change in beliefs, but if I were to take an educated guess on it, I'd have to say it's due to extremist Republican pressure.