Americans United for Life advisory-board member Robert P. George, professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University, writes in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on same-sex marriage that the best way to inflame a culture war is to try to solve it by juridical fiat. Exhibit A: Roe v. Wade, in which the Supreme Court justices “[tried] trying to remove a morally charged policy issue from the forums of democratic deliberation and resolve it according to their personal lights.”
He continues:
Even many supporters of legal abortion now consider Roe a mistake. Lacking any basis in the text, logic or original understanding of the Constitution, the decision became a symbol of the judicial usurpation of authority vested in the people and their representatives. It sent the message that judges need not be impartial umpires—as both John Roberts and Sonia Sotomayor say they should be—but that judges can impose their policy preferences under the pretext of enforcing constitutional guarantees.
By short-circuiting the democratic process, Roe inflamed the culture war that has divided our nation and polarized our politics. Abortion, which the Court purported to settle in 1973, remains the most unsettled issue in American politics—and the most unsettling. Another Roe would deepen the culture war and prolong it indefinitely. [Read the full op-ed.]
George’s observations, while not addressing the Sotomayor nomination directly, throw into sharp relief the Supreme Court pick’s misunderstanding of Roe. When asked by Sen. Lindsey Graham whether Roe changed society, Sotomayor dodged the question by saying simply that “Roe v. Wade looked at the Constitution and decided that the Constitution as applied to a claimed right applied.”
As AUL’s legal experts wrote in “What Judge Sotomayor Said — and What She Should Have Said,” the truth is far beyond what the nominee was willing to admit:
Yes, Roe v. Wade dramatically changed American society in the following ways, among others: Over 40 million unborn children have died from legal abortion; statistics suggest that the number of careless conceptions have increased, because many women treat abortion as a form of birth control; studies indicate that there are increased rates of sexually transmitted disease; it is difficult to protect minors from statutory rape in states where there are no parental involvement laws, because some clinics encourage underage girls to lie about their ages, or refuse to report suspected rape; the role of the father has been devalued, because men have no say in whether their children are or are not born; out-of-wedlock births are up — arguably many men do not feel responsible for the children they unexpectedly father because they view the decision of whether or not to have a child as solely a woman’s decision; there is an increased use of prenatal testing to discover genetic conditions, followed by pressure for women to abort children with genetic abnormalities; there are now “wrongful birth” and “wrongful life” lawsuits; it is challenging to regulate abortion clinics, and thus protect women’s health, because abortion proponents challenge the regulations in court; there are huge contradictions in the law, where “wanted” unborn children are protected but “unwanted” unborn children are not; employers generally feel less obligated to provide flexible work schedules and childcare options for their employees, and some even pressure employees to abort; countless women are suffering from the medical side effects of abortion — breast cancer, depression, placenta previa, preterm birth, suicide, and more, and there has been a general devaluing of human life. [Read the full essay.]
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Well said. I suggest additional further reading from the Aug/Sept. issue of First Things:
Her Choice, Her Problem
How Abortion Empowers Men
by Richard Stith