In this country, 330 million people can await the decision of five people for determining the future for social and political actions when judges substitute their own policy preferences for those of citizens. By overruling Roe and Casey, the Supreme Court in 2022 reaffirmed that was improper.

It said the court usurped people’s authority to decide a controversial moral and political issue; an issue that should reside in free exchange of ideas followed by directions to state legislative bodies. The ruling emphasized the Tenth Amendment which reserves to states and the people such powers.

With Roe and Casey, the Court relied upon dubious reasoning that made no attempt to be Constitutional law. They created a right to privacy and applied an embellished meaning of due process. They failed to discern a right to abortion was deeply rooted in the country’s history and traditions and ignored the fact abortion had been considered criminal sense from the earliest days of common law until 1973. A definition of personhood and a mechanism to measure the relative importance of fetus and mother is not expressed or implied by our Constitution.

The Supreme Court retains its credibility when following precedents which accord to Constitutional economic and social judgments of legislative bodies. In summary Sam Alito said, “The Constitution does not prohibit the citizens of each State from regulating or prohibiting abortion. Roe and Casey arrogated that authority. We now overrule those decisions and return that authority to the people and their elected representatives.”

Nolan Nelson

Redmond

Editor’s Note

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