What do we mean when we call for the abolition of the Roe regime? Simply this: a reversal of Supreme Court precedent, an acknowledgment by the court that it erred when it decided Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. That would turn the question of abortion back to the states and the people, where the 10th Amendment makes clear it belongs.
The abortion debate needs more politics, not less. As we noted above, drawing the line between acceptable abortion and homicide is necessarily an arbitrary exercise. For judges to issue arbitrary rulings is a corruption of the judicial function. But the production of arbitrary results–imperfect but workable arrangements that can be revised if necessary to adapt to new circumstances or knowledge–is the essence of politics.
A reversal of Roe and Casey would no more yield a consensus than the decisions themselves did. Neither the worst pro-abortion fears nor the fondest antiabortion hopes would be realized. Abortion would remain legal in many states, and any hope for a “Human Life Amendment” to the Constitution would be a pipe dream, the same as it is today. But in the absence of consensus, politics in a democratic republic would produce that least bad outcome: compromise.
Some will say it’s unrealistic to call for a reversal of Roe and Casey. But Casey was decided 5-4, and, as we noted last July, it reportedly came within a hair’s breadth of going the other way. Although several new justices have yet to weigh in on the abortion question, it is generally believed that the balance of the court is similar today to what it was in 1992.
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