Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court's Dumbest Decision

The American Thinker ^ | January 22, 2011 | Michael Filozof

[Scanian]

Imagine for a moment that you were ticketed for speeding by the state police. Suppose that you lied to the cop about why you were driving so fast. Then imagine that a group of special-interest lawyers contacted you and told you they wanted to appeal your ticket to the Supreme Court, and they gave you a legal pseudonym to hide your identity. Now imagine that the Court ruled that the ancient Romans had no speed limit on the Appian Way, that the Germans have no speed limits on the autobahn, and that speed limits are a violation of the Constitution and must be struck down.

Sound crazy? Well, the hypothetical scenario above pretty much describes the logic used by the Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade. Actually, "logic" is much too strong a word. The Court's opinion in Roe is pure sophistry -- and very bad sophistry at that.

Both opponents and supporters of Roe typically evaluate the decision in moral terms. Opponents of abortion speak in hushed tones about how Roe legalized the murder of millions of babies. Supporters of Roe stridently champion it as a "landmark" case for "women's rights." But as we observe the thirty-eighth anniversary of Roe today, we ought to remember it as the Supreme Court's dumbest decision.

From a constitutional perspective, moral arguments are irrelevant. Properly understood, the abortion question is a matter of federalism. Our Constitution lays out a governmental framework that is really quite simple. The powers of the national government are enumerated in Article 1, Sec. 8. The Tenth Amendment then tells us that any power not enumerated as a federal power (or prohibited by the Bill of Rights) is reserved for the states.

[Iron Munro]

[Jacquerie]

From Justice White's dissent:

“I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant mothers [410 U.S. 222] and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes. The upshot is that the people and the legislatures of the 50 States are constitutionally dissentitled to weigh the relative importance of the continued existence and development of the fetus, on the one hand, against a spectrum of possible impacts on the mother, on the other hand. As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.”

“I cannot accept the Court's exercise of its clear power of choice by interposing a constitutional barrier to state efforts to protect human life and by investing mothers and doctors with the constitutionally protected right to exterminate it. This issue, for the most part, should be left with the people and to the political processes the people have devised to govern their affairs.”

[Dr. Scarpetta]

What Roe revealed about our modern political elites is this: they simply do not give a damn what the Constitution does or does not say, and they know they can get away with ignoring it.

Exactly...

[StonyBurk]

Roe v.Wade was pretty dumb—and has caused a great deal of harm to every Patriot who wants to believe our Courts and our Government honor the solemn Oath taken to defend the Constitution(and fundamental law- the God given inalienable right to life recognized by the Declaration of Independence)
Fact is they do not honor the written Constitution nor any law they themselves have not had their hands on-messing with its meaning.But Roe v.Wade was enacted long after an equally dumb and harmful law-that being Everson v. Board of Education 1947 -which gave us that damned divisive Fraud perpetrated that bad metaphor loved by the transmission belts to Soviet Communist dictatorship (the ACLU-and their useful idiots) a wall separating Church and State ,attacking the pillars of Religion and Morality offering the cup o hemlock to that great experiment opening the door wide to the evil of legally denying life in the womb,ad this present darkness.

[Richard Kimball]

The court had decided it wanted to make abortion legal. They started at the desired result and worked back for the reason.

They were never able to successfully tie the decision to the Constitution. IIRC, there were arguments about whether it was covered by the equal protection clause or the fourth amendment.

In reality, the decision was as much about eugenics as the right to choose. I wonder if the justices knew that.

[Scanian]

They knew exactly what they were doing. They are very smart people.

Just as Planned Parenthood knows what it is doing by located its centers near minority neighborhoods.

[devere]

Good article.
The author makes a convincing case.

[Richard Kimball]

I think you're right. The recently released stats on abortion in NYC show this. It goes beyond liberal or conservative. There are people who believe that society must be directed, but that it will not change of it's own volition. That's one of the reasons the stated goals of programs are so often different from the actual goals.

[boop]

Thank you for printing White’s dissent. He was livid about the judicial overreach. And he was a DEMOCRAT appointed by JFK. He’s the only democrat appointed judge I know of who drifted rightward on the court. In contrast to about 80% of republican appointees that drift leftward. Why GHWB appointed Soouter I’ll never know. Did he ever vote conservatively while on the court?

[Jacquerie]

I don't know about Souter. I do know that four freepers chosen at random would do a better job at preserving our God given rights than the four liberal clowns on the court today.