Adam Liptak, Supreme Court reporter New York Times, sent up a warning flare for the right-leaning Supreme Court: Don’t mess with Roe V. Wade. His Sunday analysis, “As Roe Teeters, Belief in Court Could Tilt, Too” suggested the Court’s credibility was again (conveniently) at stake. The online headline: “Critical Moment for Roe, and the Supreme Court’s Legitimacy.”
Donald J. Trump, who appointed three Supreme Court justices while president, vowed that they would help overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that established a constitutional right to abortion. In arguments on Wednesday, there were more than a few signs that Mr. Trump had succeeded.
The court’s three Democratic-appointed justices, sounding anguished and angry, said that overruling Roe soon after a bare-knuckled political campaign to change the court’s membership would represent a tipping point, one from which the court’s legitimacy could not recover.
Liptak agreed. Pretzel logic was used by him to justify keeping what is legally unjustifiable. RoeDecision as is
It reveals a variety of competing views on the court’s function. Over the decades conservatives held that Roe was judicial activism. Roe announced a right not contained in the Constitution and overrode the political process for a desired outcome.
After nearly 50 years of this right being woven into society’s fabric, it seems that the argument has come full circle. Liberals argue that the court decision to abolish the right to abort would be a form of flagrant political activism.
Liptak maintained that liberal justices were a good idea in light of their concern.
Recent polls — taken after the court allowed a Texas law that bans abortions after six weeks to take effect in September, but before Wednesday’s arguments — suggest that Justices Sotomayor and Breyer were right to worry about the court’s standing.
Liptak then found three polls that supported his liberal interpretation.
To his partial credit, Liptak let a rare dissenting professor voice have the last word.
Prof. [Nicole]Garnett claimed that in Mississippi, the court should be acting for its own sake — and not overrule Roe.
“When the court straightforwardly upholds the Constitution and stays within its proper role, despite the possibility of negative publicity, as it did in Brown v. Board of Education, its legitimacy is reinforced,” she said. “A negative reaction does not mean that the court has done something illegitimate. It may mean the opposite.”
In October, Liptak also warned about a Supreme Court credibility crisis on the same abortion case, under a lead story headlined “Abortion Leads Charged Docket in Court Return – Challenge For Roberts – Justices Defend Record as Polls Show Decline in Public Support.”
In December 2018, according to Liptak, the newly right-leaning Court was heading into a “dangerous time” for its “legitimacy.”
Yet decades of justices making “progressive” rulings that furthered the liberal agenda without Democrats having to mess with passing actual legislation, hadn’t made a dent in the Court’s reputation. It’s funny how it works.
P.S. Saturday’s paper hosted a screed on the same topic by the paper’s former Supreme Court reporter, Linda Greenhouse. The online headline was astringent: “The Supreme Court Gaslights Its Way to the End of Roe.”
Greenhouse was a marcher for abortion in 1989 during which time he also fought against sexism. Timesreporter, and became obsessed about the topic. He was particularly concerned about Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
More gaslighting: The superficial plausibility of Justice Kavanaugh’s analogy between Plessy v. Ferguson and Roe v. Wade dissolves with a second’s contemplation. For one thing, Plessy negated individual liberty, while Roe expanded it….
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