Predicting an end to Roe v. Wade

[Clintonista2]

Former acting Solicitor General Walter Dellinger predicted Tuesday night that the Supreme Court will overturn Roe vs. Wade, the landmark decision that gives women abortion rights.

The noted liberal scholar said the 1973 decision has become a “trophy” that the court’s conservative bloc could overturn if a Republican president chooses a replacement for Justice Anthony Kennedy.

“I absolutely believe it,” Dellinger said during a forum cosponsored by POLITICO.

“For a while I thought that one could simply chip away at a lot more and more regulations that sort of protected access (to abortions) for the most affluent women but really made it impossible for women who were vulnerable to geography, poverty (and) youth,” he added. “But now I think that, actually, it is such a symbol of a kind of jurisprudence that conservatives have set themselves in opposition to.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/38899.html#ixzz0rgJDHi4i
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[vaberella]

1. Could be why Obama is putting as many women in the Supreme Court as possible. n/t

[Jamastiene]

2. They've been chipping away at it for eons now.

The minute the declared a fetus could be murdered,, Roe v Wade's days were numbered...sadly.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. There's a reason that it hasn't been overturned...

The bushbots were in power for 8 years, and still it stands. They know if it were overturned, it would be a flash point, a rallying cry for the liberals...

They will eat away at it, but I believe that in some form, it will always stand.

[mediaman007]

4. So true! How else can they keep so many people voting

against their own interests.

[DrToast]

9. Kennedy didn't retire during Bush's term.*

*

[CaliforniaPeggy]

11. I'm not understanding you...

Would you clarify your statement?

[DrToast]

12. The votes aren't there to overturn it

And they weren't when Bush was in charge. The article is talking about a situation in which Kennedy retires and a Republican President appoints another right winger.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

18. Ah, now I got it. Thanks...

[TheWraith]

10. Moreover, it would de-motivate a chunk of their own base.

They raise a ton of money off of abortion. They would much rather have the issue to rail about and drive the base to the polls than actually do anything about it.

[Arugula Latte]

27. Bingo.

I think that is the biggest reason they want it to stay.

[Arkansas Granny]

13. Another reason it still stands is because many conservative voters are single issue voters.

If you take away the single issue that brings them to the polls, they will lose much of their base. It would be hard for them to win elections if the pro-life people didn't show up.

[county worker]

15. If the liberals don't have flash point now they never will.

IMHO, we couldn't lite our asses on fire!

[harun]

16. Yah, it is political gun powder for them. They need things the way they are.

They aren't going to over turn it.

[MadMaddie]

23. Not only that Peggy but they would lose one of their hot

flashpoints to rally their side.

When and if it does happen they will then turn around and scream about why poor and middle class women are having so many babys.

[xchrom]

5. I do believe he is correct.

It's one reason conservatives work so hard
on placing judges.

[Perky]

6. Not a chance in Hel

The backlash would be s huge that the GOP would lose the Senate, A Dem would be elected president and they would get two or three liberals on the court in their stead. Plus I suspect there would be a move to codify a Right to Privacy via constitutional amendment.


Republicans need Roe for fundraising and rallying g the base. It's the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg. So they really do not want it to go away let alone inflame the passions on the left

[CTyankee]

19. Backlash,really? When we have polls showing that people are now more "pro-life" than"pro-choice"?

I am aware that they are not well informed people, but there we have it. This is a sad state of affairs. People do not rememeber or weren't alive to remember when women DIED in illegal abortions because of state laws, or there were other restrictions that made them take things into their own hands...

This is a serious situation. If we slip back now, our daughters, our young mothers, our friends, coworkers and even our granddaughters could potentially DIE at the hands of an illegal abortionist.

Enough!

[Unvanguard]

20. But that actually is a product of a culture where Roe v. Wade is a given.

It has two effects. First, many people who have moral problems with abortion, but would not actually support banning it, identify as "pro-life", because the label is divorced from any real effort to ban abortion (similarly, people who support some restrictions short of outlawing might identify that way). Second, people who do in principle support abortion bans never actually have to face up to what they would substantively mean in practice: they don't have to wrestle with the problem of dangerous illegal abortions, they don't have to worry about people close to them being able to get abortions when it is urgently necessary, they don't have to actually put their money where their mouth is. It is easier for them because it is all in theory.

In terms of the political success of the pro-choice movement, and probably the Democratic Party too, Roe v. Wade has almost certainly been a net loss, for the above reasons and because the anti-choicers have been able to portray the pro-choice movement as fundamentally undemocratic. In terms of the welfare and freedom of women, of course, it has been a strong positive. Even today we would probably see a greater array of abortion restrictions without it, though I doubt many states would go so far as to actually ban it (even with rape/incest/life-of-the-mother exceptions.)

[Perky]

24. It's practically a third rail... held in political equilibrium

Whoever dares to touch it and move it dramatically in one direction or another is gonna be serious bludgeoned in the next election Roe has alway been usee a light a fire under the base of both parties. Those who feel they have suffered a big losss on Roe will be out id droves and out for blood.


The popular sentiments don't matter its the base of the opposing party that will beat the party that is up to a pulp. That why neither party, when they controlled both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue do not try to strengthen it or destroy it. They know they will get pummeled in the next election.

[davidpdx]

25. I'm skeptical about that. I think they are stupid enough to push their cause

so far it runs it into the ground. While I certainly don't want them to over turn Roe v. Wade, it does appear they are continuing to try to overturn it by challanging certain laws in states where they know they will win and it might get appealed to the Supreme Court.

[WI_DEM]

7. I don't believe they will.

[Unvanguard]

8. Kennedy joined the plurality in Casey. Roe is safe, absent a Republican presidency. n/t

[depakid]

21. Nope-

and thanks for noting the Roe's no longer good law. Reproductive freedom is no longer a fundamental right.

[Unvanguard]

22. "Nope" what?

Kennedy didn't join the Casey plurality? Yes, he did.

Roe v. Wade isn't safe? Well, if you are going to insist that Casey already killed Roe, then you are correct in a sense, but a sense irrelevant to the topic of the thread. While, after Casey and after O'Connor's retirement, abortion restrictions are likely to be more successful in court than they once were, it remains the case that the vast majority of abortions are constitutionally-protected and cannot be prohibited.

Edit: Bad phrasing on my part. Kennedy did not join the plurality in Casey. What I meant to say, but misstated because I wasn't thinking about the vote counts, was that he joined the controlling joint opinion that reaffirmed Roe's basic point.

[depakid]

26. Kennedy's vote is not assured if the issue comes up with the "right facts"

that much can be read from the tea leaves of recent decisions.

And what the right is gunning for isn't Roe/Casey but Griswold/Eisenstadt.

[Ter]

14. Is it possible to be pro-choice and anti-Roe vs. Wade?

Suppose someone supports a national abortion law legalizing it everywhere in every state (or even a Constitutional Amendment), but wonders about the current Constitutional right to an abortion?

[Unvanguard]

17. Yes. John Hart Ely, a well-respected constitutional law scholar, was, for instance.

Not too common nowadays though, because of the intense partisanship of the Court and the hot-button issues it considers.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

28. Looking at the relative ages of liberal and conservative justices, this seems very likely.

There are quite a number of aging liberals and only one elderly conservative; unless the Dems control the presidency solidly for a long time a conservative majority in the future looks likely.