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Whatever happened to rational discussion?
In the past couple of months, I’ve read the various hysterical and sometimes ludicrous statements about the recent Supreme Court Dobbs decision (overturning of Roe v Wade) and find myself wondering if anyone is rational anymore?
Recently a North Shore Journal column claimed that the Dobbs decision would harm women: “…The Time to Fight for Reproductive Health is NOW.” That twisted phrase has always confused me because if women don’t have “Reproductive Health,” how do they get pregnant?
More recently in this publication it was stated that a miscarriage could be punished by death and pregnancy tests at gunpoint could await interstate travelers. Now those statements should really lead to some level-headed discussions.
Then there are those that want to impeach Justice Kavanaugh for stating during his confirmation hearing that Roe v Wade was ‘settled law.’
I’ve heard others state that it’s unprecedented to overturn a previous Supreme Court Decision. That’s laughable, in over a couple hundred ‘settled law’ cases the SCOTUS overturned previous decisions. (Go to constitution.congress.gov. Table of Supreme Court Decisions Overruled by Subsequent Decisions.) And just as a side note, in 2020 the case of Ramos v Louisiana overturned a previous 1972 SCOTUS ruling. It was another 6-3 vote, with Justices Gorsuch, Ginsburg, Sotomayor, Kavanaugh, Breyer, and Thomas in the majority and Roberts, Alito, and Kagan dissenting. I point this out because anyone who knows the makeup of the Court (and you should if you’re really paying attention) can see that the Justices aren’t as predictable as one might think.
But back to the Dobbs decision. When Roe v Wade was decided, Chief Justice Warren Burger, in his concurrence, not only thought it would be OK for a state to require two physicians to certify an abortion before it could be performed, but also went on to write, “Plainly, the Court today rejects any claim that the Constitution requires abortions on demand.” But liberals always go a bridge too far. We’ve all seen candidate Hillary Clinton screaming into the microphone “Abortion on demand!!” And we’ve all heard the horror of full-term abortions. We’ve seen the coarse demonstrations, and the terrorism perpetrated against Pro-Life clinics. And we’re supposed to accept those occurrences as reasonable discourse.
When asked about Roe v Wade, Justice Ginsburg once said, “A less encompassing Roe, one that merely struck down the extreme Texas law and went no further on that day might have served to reduce rather than to fuel controversy.” Sounds reasonable. She later went on to say, “it seemed entirely to remove the ball from legislators court.”
In other words, the courts should stay in their lane. Some might want to centralize power in the hands of an unelected group of nine in order to expedite future laws. But many of us are a little old fashioned and prefer the often-clamorous debates of a representative body that has kept this Republic intact for well over 200 hundred years.
Ronald Wizykoski, Hovland
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