Comment by IAmBroom

That presumes that SCOTUS represents the "general" attitudes of all Americans. But when they overturned Roe v. Wade, they explicitly went against the majority consensus of Americans.

General != majority, but SCOTUS is not a gauge of American opinion. Perhaps a better example is Brown v. Board of Education, at a time when a very large portion of the public was not in favor of integrating the races in public schools.

TL;DR: Protection is absolutely provided by the courts, which is the highest authority on what the Constitution (and Amendments) and other laws mean.