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Qualifications for the Worst Justice Ever
That would be Harry Blackmun. Francis Menton views Blackmun as a pretty good candidate, but Mr. Menton also allows that good cases could be made for others.
A Shockingly Week Decision
The Manhattan Contrarian writes that Roe, unquestionably, is the most dramatic and consequential power grab from the Warren Supreme Court era.
The huge significance of the decision has to have been understood by all members of the Court when it was in the works. And yet the decision is shockingly weak. It’s hard even to discern a logic. Most of the decision is history and background, and then the whole reasoning comes down to a few sentences, most of them entirely unmoored from the Constitution itself. If Blackmun and his colleagues continues Mr. Menton, thought that they could remove the issue of abortion from the political realm by the Roe decision, the truth turned out to be the opposite.
Abortion became and has remained the hottest among hot button political issues and has poisoned the entire process of Supreme Court appointments now for several decades. Meanwhile, in Europe the issue worked its way through the democratic process, where most countries have come to a position of allowing the procedure through approximately the first trimester.
In the wake of the leaked draft opinion, it should come as no surprise that the Justices have made their decision: It is not up to SCOTUS to decide on abortion. Rather than it being the Court’s job, SCOTUS is handing it back to the people. It’s the people’s job.
The Long Overdue Sentence:
The Constitution does not confer a right to abortion; Roe and Casey are overruled; and the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the people and their elected representatives.
A True Exercise of Democracy
Americans finally will hear if either side of the abortion debates has an “intellectually honest, thoughtful argument to offer,” rather than hear from activists groups that are, as Rebecca Sugar writes in the WSJ, “home base for those addicted to moral outrage, and for the greedy opportunists making money and political careers off them.”
The Debate Can Resume
A ruling that is still controversial and unworkable after five decades is compelling evidence it was wrongly decided.
The abortion debate – both sides – will now have to achieve each policy goal the old-fashioned way: through persuasion, not judicial fiat, argues the WSJ.
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