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Saturday, June 25, 2022

Two Questions

SCOTUS, as expected, has overturned Roe v. Wade (1973) as well as Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992). Also, as expected, there's been a lot of outrage on the left and the outrage will probably grow over the weekend.

Amidst all of it people would do well to look for one thing. They should look for any actual argument on the part of those who oppose the Court's Dobbs decision which attempts to show that the Court wrongly decided this case.

Are those who object to Dobbs willing to defend either Roe or Casey as being properly grounded in the Constitution? Is there any Constitutionally based error in the Dobbs opinion written by Samuel Alito or in the concurrence written by Clarence Thomas?

If not, then the majority was correct to overturn the precedents, and all the anger and threats from those who object to the decision are actually demands that the Court abandon its proper role as an adjudicator of the Constitution and take on the role of a legislature.

Whether or not one thinks abortion should be legal everywhere and at any time throughout a pregnancy, if the Constitution does not contain a right to an abortion, if earlier Courts in deciding Roe and Casey manufactured Constitutional rights that don't exist in the document itself, then we have to acknowledge that the current Court, or at least five of its members, did their job.

It's not the responsibility of the Court to do what's popular. It's not the responsibility of the Court to make laws.

It's the responsibility of the Court to ascertain whether a law is compatible with the Constitution, and, on some occasions, to determine whether an earlier ruling was wrongly decided, and then let the political chips fall where they may.

Those who wish the Court to be a legislature actually wish for the United States to turn itself into a third world autocracy. Those who believe that the Constitution means something and that our nation needs to be governed in accord with it have reason today to be grateful.