Posted on 01/25/2008 5:22:21 PM PST by wagglebee
Starkville, MS (LifeNews.com) -- Justice Antonin Scalia told students at Mississippi State University on Thursday that the nation's high court shouldn't be determining the legality of key moral issues like abortion. He said the high court is no more suited to determine if abortion should be legal than the average voter.
Scalia is a long-time proponent of overturning Roe v. Wade and letting state's have the ability to determine their own abortion laws.
“What I am questioning is the propriety, indeed, the sanity of letting value-laden decisions such as these be made for the entire society,” Scalia told the students in a speech.
“Even if there were scientific right answers, there would be no reason to believe that law-trained professionals could discern those answers better than say medical doctors or engineers or ethicists or Mr. Joe Six Pack," Scalia added, according to an Associated Press report.
“Our judges’ lack of special qualification to deal with such questions is disguised by the fact that they provided their answers in classic legal opinion form. It is blindingly clear that judges have no greater capacity than the rest of us to determine what is moral,” Scalia said.
Scalia said, as recently as October, that no right to abortion exists in the Constitution.
In a speech at Villanova Law School's Second Annual John F. Scarpa Conference on Law, Politics & Culture, he reconfirmed that view.
He said that notion is not guided by his Catholic views but by his understanding of the Constitution and his perspective as a "strict originalist" and "legal positivist."
"Not everything you may care about is in the Constitution," he told the audience, according to a report in The Bulletin newspaper. "It is a legal document that had compromises in it. What it says it says; what it doesn't say it doesn't say."
"I don't agree we are in an era of narrow constitutional interpretation. There are still sweeping decisions out there," Scalia added.
"Roe v. Wade is one. There is nothing in the Constitution about the right to abortion," the associate justice explained.
Pro-life advocates hope that another justice with the same views as Scalia can be added to the court to join with Chief Justice John Roberts, and Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito to overturn Roe.
Hopefully, the Court will soon find a case to overturn Roe and declare that the Constitution supports life or at least returns the matter to the states.
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He’s right. Everytime the Court tries they screw it up.
I love this guy!
I now support human cloning, if only to make eight more copies of the good Justice Scalia for the court. :)
The court doesn’t ‘find’ cases. Cases are brought to the court.
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Courts Shouldn't Decide Key Moral Issues Like Abortion
Courts Shouldn't Decide Key Moral Issues Like Murder
Courts Shouldn't Decide Key Moral Issues Like Rape
Courts Shouldn't Decide Key Moral Issues Like Arson
In fact he is right, legislators ought to write laws in accord with Natural Law.
“Hopefully, the Court will soon find a case to overturn Roe and declare that the Constitution supports life or at least returns the matter to the states.”
That depends in large part on who the next President is.
Justice Scalia makes a reference to one of FRs favorite sons!
lol, I second that :>
If Hillary gets to appoint the next person to the court, it will never turn over Roe v Wade.
This is the essence of conservative judicial philosophy. It does put a burden of balls on the legislative leg of government. Gee, maybe lawyers in black dresses are not the fount of American morality. What a concept!!
If we could have elected Fred Thompson we would likeley have two more justices just like AS, alas we could not.
If, the word that gets us nowhere.
If we only had a few more on the SCOTUS like him.
It is not over until is is over. The convention stands a clear chance of being deadlocked. Fred can rise again!!!
In a round about way they do "find" cases, there have been plenty of cases that dealt with abortion that the Court could have used to overturn Roe.
Justice Breyer: U.S. Constitution should be subordinated to international will.
My question is: Since Breyer has demonstrated an inability to hold to his oath, isn't he disqualified to continue holding his appointment?
"[W]hen a strict interpretation of the Constitution, according to the fixed rules which govern the interpretation of laws, is abandoned, and the theoretical opinions of individuals are allowed to control its meaning, we have no longer a Constitution; we are under the government of individual men, who for the time being have power to declare what the Constitution is, according to their own views of what it ought to mean."
Dred Scott v. Sandford, 19 How. 393, 621 (1857) (Curtis, J., dissenting).
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