• WASHINGTON (AP) -- A closely divided Supreme Court. Four justices in their 70s. Presidential candidates with dramatically different views of the ideal high court nominee.
• And yet, until late in Thursday's debate between Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, hardly a word about the court had passed the candidates' lips. When the presidential candidates debated a week earlier, the Supreme Court was not mentioned even once.
• Neither President Barack Obama nor Republican challenger Mitt Romney talks about the court in campaign speeches.
• In the space of a couple of minutes on Thursday, however, the vice presidential candidates touched on the stakes in next month's election.
• The court came up when debate moderator Martha Raddatz asked about abortion.
• Ryan made a reference that might have been oblique to many viewers but was well understood by advocates on both sides of the abortion debate as a repudiation of the court's decision in Roe v. Wade in 1973 declaring a woman's constitutional right to an abortion.
• "We don't think that unelected judges should make this decision," Ryan said. Instead, "people through their elected representatives in reaching a consensus in society through the democratic process should make this determination."
• The tone and substance of Ryan's words are similar to the views of Justice Antonin Scalia, who recently reiterated his belief that the Constitution offers no protection for the rights of women who seek an abortion.
• Biden then specifically invoked Roe v. Wade and the threat he believes Romney's election would pose to that landmark ruling.

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