The Roe V. Wade Hypocrisy

     On the 24th of June, the Supreme Court decided in a 6-3 decision to reverse the landmark decision of Roe v. Wade which liberalized abortion access nationwide. This was widely expected as the decision of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization case had been leaked around a month prior in an unprecedented breach of security. As to who leaked it would be anybody's guess but the smart money is on Justice Sotomayor who appears more activist than a judge or a level 200 Machiavellian ploy by Chief Justice Roberts in an attempt to use public anger over the decision in a vain attempt to moderate the more ideological sections of the majority opinion. Whatever the case may be, the culmination of decades of conservative legal activism and judicial revanchism against the Warren and Burger courts has led to this decision, a first in the modern Western world that represents a significant reversal in the legal fortunes of what was liberalized in the 1960s and 70s. It has seemed the conventional wisdom that the liberal expansion of freedoms was both inevitable and irreversible but the Dobbs decision proves otherwise. 

    The reaction to this decision has been a wave of hypocrisy from the left with some calling for the packing of the court to the impeachment of the conservative members for "lying under oath". There is a specific emphasis on the impeachment of Justice Thomas for the actions of his wife pertaining to January 6th the same people who call for this usually tend to absolve President Biden of any crimes committed by his son Hunter Biden. 

    The favored word that comes from the mouth of these people is "precedent", double points if used in the same sentence as Roe v. Wade, their point is that they consider that decision to be the unalterable gospel decision that should not be touched in any way. But this demonstrates an ignorance of how the Supreme Court actually works, precedent is extremely important but not sacrosanct in deciding a case. If all precedent worked in the way that the left wanted Roe v. Wade to work then we would still have the legal segregation espoused in Plessy v. Ferguson which was precedent for longer than the Roe decision. The leftist will respond "but Plessy was a restriction of freedom and Roe was an expansion of freedom" but that is inherently subjective, does the Roe case not imply a restriction on the previously enjoyed freedom of the Fetus in states with laws restricting abortion? The argument for precedent in the case of Roe is simply a veneer for the leftist to argue for his subjective opinion. Their argument boils down to "precedent matters in the cases I agree with and doesn't in the cases I don't". 

    The left is railing against the "radical" decision of the court that changes the lives of millions in Dobbs yet they were cheering when the Roe decision was decided which had a cataclysmic impact on American law. Since the 1960s the Democrats had abdicated most of their legislative agenda to a Supreme Court that had been favorable to them, and the major social issues of the day like affirmative action, abortion, gay rights, and so on had been taken up and decided upon by an activist court. And so the left realizes that anything given to them by the court can also be taken away by the court. And this Trumpified Roberts court has shown a willingness to reverse the damage the previous Burger and Warren courts have done to the separation of powers and hopefully will usher in a vision that the court will no longer be a quasi-legislative branch of government.  

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