Reversal of Roe v. Wade

I just read yet another opinion stating that the Supreme Court reversing its prior decision in Roe v. Wade is somehow trying to establish a national religion in this country. I understand the futility of trying to correct that level of willful ignorance, however I cannot allow this to be the only voice on this issue and I’ve, so far, seen no reasonable alternative. I’m therefore compelled to write this down so the common sense of this matter is expressed somewhere in the universe, no matter how persistently it will be ignored.

Whatever your stand on abortion, anyone with any sense should have been outraged at the original decision in the case of Roe v. Wade. It was the clearest example of judicial tyranny of which I had ever heard. It was an obvious example of the court legislating from the bench, in direct violation of their purpose and clear limitations. They are NOT the legislative branch of government. That honor goes to Congress, alone, because it is Congress who is most directly elected by the people and who, therefore, best represents the desires of the people. Judges, who are not elected and who cannot be easily dismissed, precisely in order that they may render their judgements independent of the will of the people, are prohibited from creating law. Their function is nothing more than fairly interpreting the existing laws created by Congress.

Our U.S. Congress at the time of Roe v. Wade was deadlocked on the issue of abortion. They were unable to find any decision regarding abortion, pro or con, that was acceptable to the majority of our citizens. Because our U.S. Congress had failed to pass a national law on the issue, it was therefore left to each state to decide for itself what, if any, laws regarding this issue the citizens of that state wished to rule them.

Please note, the more local any law is, the more power each individual citizen who is subject to it has in its creation. It is far easier for any citizen to vote in or out or amend the laws of his neighborhood, his community, his local city, his local county, or his local state, than it is to make or change national laws. This means that when the opinions on any matter are so split that acceptable laws cannot be passed nationally, allowing them to be handled by the states (or where that is also not possible, by the more local governments) is the ideal solution. Not only does it allow people to live under the laws they prefer, but it also provides a natural testing ground for various laws. People around the nation can watch and see how others handle the issue and, after enough time has passed to judge fairly, decide which laws have better served their people. It also allows those individuals who disagree with the law in their local area to more easily adapt by going to a different area to be under different laws.

In the time immediately prior to Roe v. Wade, different states had created different laws regarding abortion. If someone wanted an abortion but resided in a state where it was not allowed, that person merely had to cross state lines to access an abortion in a state where it was allowed. My mother and many of her friends told me that they had done this. It was an inconvenience, but no one who wanted an abortion performed by a doctor in a sanitary, professional space, failed to achieve it, according to any and all of the people I knew.

Then came Roe v. Wade. With Congress unable to pass any national laws regarding abortion, the Supreme Court decided to do so for them. They did this by inventing a right to privacy, which cannot be found in our U.S. Constitution. Based on this non-existent right, they then decided a schedule of procedures that could be performed according to the period of pregnancy. Please note, these were judges, NOT doctors or scientists. They had no medical authority nor any special knowledge of biology to inform their decision in this matter. Most importantly, however, they had no Constitutional authority at all – not only in the authority granted them to interpret law, ONLY, and do nothing to create it, but also in the fact that no where in the U.S. Constitution was the matter of abortion addressed in any way. There was no text on which they could even pretend to base this decision as an interpretation. It was, obviously, a completely new law, fabricated by the Supreme Court from absolutely nothing. This law, which they invented, was not in any way Constitutional, except that, because of their authority to interpret the Constitution, and because we had not established an authority to properly check the court’s grab for power in this way, we had no legal way to stop the court’s obvious abuse.

Worse, because this legislation from the bench was imposed on us by the Supreme Court, under the guise of interpreting the U.S. Constitution, their newly invented law immediately had the same status as if it had been written into our Constitution and ratified by our states. The fact that it could not possibly have been ratified at that time, had it been tried legally, was irrelevant, because none of the states, nor any citizen in our country beyond the Supreme Court judges, themselves, ever got the chance to vote on this new law. As a default Constitutional law, according to the pretense of it as an “interpretation” of our Constitution by the Supreme Court, this law could not be voted out, either. It would take us going through the arduous procedure required to amend our Constitution to rid ourselves of this newly invented and unelectable law. Assuming we had spent the years to push through such a constitutional amendment, however, and finally managed to amend the Constitution to undo the harm caused by our Supreme Court, all the Supreme Court judges had to do was to ignore new the amendment, since they, and they alone, had the power to interpret the U.S. Constitution. A court tyrannical enough to invent verbiage that did not exist to impose such a law on an unwilling population, could not be trusted to recognize verbiage that did exist to undo their legislation. Until we managed to appoint a more honorable court willing to reverse this unconstitutional decision, we were forced to live under their law, unable even to amend it by normal laws passed properly through Congress, since the tyrannical court had made it a “Constitutional” fact.

Thankfully for the sake of our country, this reversal recently occurred. Now we are free to resume debating the issue of abortion. We are finally free to seek a real solution – one agreeable to our citizens. Until we can find one on a national level, our citizens are free to try the approaches they deem best at their local levels, where we can watch how they work and see what might work best for us nationally. In other words, thanks to the reversal of judicial tyranny imposed on us by our Supreme Court in this matter, our Constitutional freedoms in this issue have been restored and the healthy debate may now recommence. Whatever your opinion is on the issue of abortion, itself, there can be no doubt that the reversal of the Roe v. Wade decision is the best thing possible for our country.

Barring future illegal activities, the abortion issue in this country will be decided the proper way. The debate will continue until the clear majority of the people are convinced to support one of the sides, at which point a law can be passed codifying the majority public opinion. Until that time, local governments will make laws supported by their local people. The people holding minority opinions in those areas can either work to change the minds of their neighbors or else move to areas where their opinions agree with the majority. People prophesying dire consequences from the implementation of various laws, will see those laws in action and be able to judge if their fears are valid. They may either find they were mistaken, or else, if proved true, they will now have facts supporting their positions. With the freedom to debate and explore different options, eventually we will arrive at the best solution. We have that possibility now, as we did not while under the tyrannical decision of Roe v. Wade.

So, with all this in mind, I must demand to know of those who insist this long-desired reversal of Roe v. Wade is an establishment of a national religion, which, of all the many religions offended by the law invented by the Supreme Court in this matter, do they believe is being imposed on us.

Also, before we are distracted by the resumption of the abortion debate, I want to urge my fellow citizens to focus on the real danger Roe v. Wade illuminated for us. Our founding fathers believed that the three branches of national government provided adequate checks and balances to prevent abuse of power. The Judicial tyranny demonstrated in the Roe v. Wade case, which we clearly had no legal way to address, proves our founding fathers were mistaken. Obviously we need additional checks on our courts. What solutions might there be to allow judges the necessary independence to adjudicate fairly, without fear of the outrage of the potentially ill-informed masses, yet stop them from legislating from the bench?