# If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade ... **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 7, 2006, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349 "2006-03-07T06:26:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/41 "2006-03-08T01:28:38Z")
> [@Polerius](#): > > OK, so the “new technology” or “new scientific facts” angle might be used, but I assume that there are other angles. Sure, they can do it in a fashion such as **Walloon** quoted in #38. In fact, there is a real possibility they might do it that way. Most people who look at it, even if they are pro-choice and would not like to see Roe overturned, tend to admit it amounted to legal contortionism to drag the reasoning for it out of the US Constitution. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/42 "2006-03-08T01:46:06Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > In fact, there is a real possibility they might do it that way. Most people who look at it, even if they are pro-choice and would not like to see Roe overturned, tend to admit it amounted to legal contortionism to drag the reasoning for it out of the US Constitution. Some pro-choicers, yes. Most pro-choicers? I’d need a cite before I’d believe that. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/43 "2006-03-08T01:54:04Z")
Jack Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School, asked some of the nation’s foremost constitutional law scholars to imagine how they might have written _Roe_. The results are compiled in _What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: America’s Top Legal Experts Rewrite America’s Most Controversial Decision_. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/44 "2006-03-08T02:14:02Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Some pro-choicers, yes. Most pro-choicers? I’d need a cite before I’d believe that. You’re right. I should have said the intellectually honest pro-choicers who have bothered to look into it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/45 "2006-03-08T02:30:32Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > You’re right. I should have said the intellectually honest pro-choicers who have bothered to look into it. And let me guess… you get to define what “intellectually honest” means, right? :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/46 "2006-03-08T02:38:51Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > And let me guess… you get to define what “intellectually honest” means, right? :rolleyes: Why are you busting my balls? I agreed with you. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/47 "2006-03-08T05:50:27Z")
“Hans Brix! Why you bust my balls!” You had to have seen _Team America, World Police_. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Cad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saint_cad/32/18907_2.png) [@Saint\_Cad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Cad)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 6:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/48 "2006-03-08T06:09:21Z")
Quote: Has the Supreme Court ever admitted that a past decision was wrong? > [@John Mace](#): > > Yep. One of the most famous cases is _Brown v The Board of Education of Topeka_, which overturned _Plessy v Ferguson_. Not really. _Brown v. Board_ never said the “separate but equal” conditions of _Plessy_ were wrong. They simply said that in the field of education, separate was inherently unequal. If a situation involves separate but truly equal facilities for a protected class (like separate bathrooms for men and women), I’m sure that SCOTUS would have no problem using _Plessy_ to justify their ruling. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/49 "2006-03-08T06:43:00Z")
If _Roe v Wade_ is overturned, there will be no security in the decision. Another case and another SCOTUS will make a different decision. I just don’t see the course of history rendering women less powerful. On the other hand, I don’t think that science will make fetuses and embryos less viable. I wonder if the the laws will become even more restrictive than they were before _Roe_. _Therapeutic abortions_ are those recommended by the physician. Will they still be legal? ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/50 "2006-03-08T06:52:34Z")
If _Roe v. Wade_ is overturned, state abortion laws would once again pertain. The defintion of “therapeutic abortion” varies widely. A Google search on _define: therapeutic abortion_ gets these definitions: • A pregnancy ending in an induced abortion using an operative procedure to electively terminate the pregnancy. [www.ivf.org/glossary.html](http://www.ivf.org/glossary.html) • This is when a woman chooses to terminate the pregnancy. Teratogen - A teratogen is any environmental agent, be it a drug, chemical, infection or pollutant which harms a developing embryo or fetus. health.ucsd.edu/teratogen/Glossary.asp • An intentional termination of pregnancy for the purpose of preserving the life of the mother. [www.infertilitycentral.com/fertility/infertility-glossary.html](http://www.infertilitycentral.com/fertility/infertility-glossary.html) • a termination (due to severe abnormalities or when the mother’s health is at risk) of a pregnancy not intended to result in a live birth. [www.laborcompanions.com/definitions.htm](http://www.laborcompanions.com/definitions.htm) • a legally induced abortion for medical reasons (as when the mother’s life is threatened) wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/51 "2006-03-08T13:45:20Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > So, if they reaffirm _Roe v. Wade_, they are exercising their “judicial responsibilities”. But if they overturn it, they are allowing their “prejudices” to override. > > 'Cause people who want to retain _Roe v. Wade_ don’t have prejudices on the issue. Walloon, you keep coming on like there’s some sort of middle ground here – like there’s a legally objectively verifiably correct position on RvW (and the correct position is anti-choice), and that abortion isn’t the most divisive issue ever to come before the Court since the civil rights era. (And we all know what a party THAT was back in the 50s and 60s.) The reality is that Roberts and Alito were both appoitned by a conservative President very much to appease the desire of his religious conservative base to get anti-abortion jurists on the Court. That’s why they’re there. All this crap about “not a judicial activist” and “stare decis” is just a bunch of bullshit ginned up by the right wing to make the Court-stacking more palatable to the gullible. You’re right that “prejudices” isn’t really the right term here. Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas probably come by their anti-abortion opinions through their religious faith honestly. But let’s not pretend that the basis on wich they make their decisions is just a matter of legal precedent. As Michael Corleone says in the Godfather Part II: “Don’t insult my intelligence.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/52 "2006-03-08T14:13:52Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > The reality is that Roberts and Alito were both appoitned by a conservative President very much to appease the desire of his religious conservative base to get anti-abortion jurists on the Court. That’s why they’re there. All this crap about “not a judicial activist” and “stare decis” is just a bunch of bullshit ginned up by the right wing to make the Court-stacking more palatable to the gullible. > > You’re right that “prejudices” isn’t really the right term here. Roberts, Alito, Scalia and Thomas probably come by their anti-abortion opinions through their religious faith honestly. But let’s not pretend that the basis on wich they make their decisions is just a matter of legal precedent. > > As Michael Corleone says in the Godfather Part II: “Don’t insult my intelligence.” You don’t seem to seperate your politics from how you view judicial rulings. But that doesnt mean other people are the same. If those guys vote to overturn _Roe_, it won’t be because they’re “anti-abortion”, it’ll be because they see abortion as a matter for the states to decide. You’d be right if they cited a “right to life” of the fetus in their ruling and thus banned abortion outright, but I don’t see that happening. What would most likely happen is they would fail to uphold the idea that the right to privacy implied a right to an abortion. That’s an entirely differnet legal argument, and need not depend on whether one is pro- or anti-abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/53 "2006-03-08T14:15:44Z")
> [@](#): > > If those guys vote to overturn Roe, it won’t be because they’re “anti-abortion”, it’ll be because they see abortion as a matter for the states to decide. I disagree with the conclusory nature of your statement, **John**. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/54 "2006-03-08T14:23:00Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > You don’t seem to seperate your politics from how you view judicial rulings. But that doesnt mean other people are the same. > > If those guys vote to overturn _Roe_, it won’t be because they’re “anti-abortion”, it’ll be because they see abortion as a matter for the states to decide. You’d be right if they cited a “right to life” of the fetus in their ruling and thus banned abortion outright, but I don’t see that happening. What would most likely happen is they would fail to uphold the idea that the right to privacy implied a right to an abortion. That’s an entirely differnet legal argument, and need not depend on whether one is pro- or anti-abortion. I like the way you ignore the substance of my argument and then try a fast bait and switch, but it won’t work. As I’ve already state elsewhere, the conservative Supremes (and the moderates, too, to be fair) know their way around the law. I’m sure the legal basis on which they overturn or otherwise invalidate Roe v Wade will be consistent with whatever existing law they can come up with. But really, John, it’s asking an awful lot of me and everyone else to the left of Dobson to just ignore the politics of the last decade or two and mindlessly accept the decisions of the Supremes are purely judicial in nature, when there’s been SO much political jockeying to ensure that the right OUTCOME occurs. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/55 "2006-03-08T14:24:42Z")
1. I don’t use propaganda terms like your “anti-choice” (among other reasons because is not the guiding motive of those opposed to abortion), 2. I have not stated that there is a “correct” position is on _Roe v. Wade_. That is your word, not mine. 3. I do think it very hypocritical that those in the Senate (e.g., Kennedy) and outside it (e.g., National Organization for Women) whose goal is to assure that the Supreme Court is appointed with those who will not overturn _Roe v. Wade_, cry “court packing” and “appeasing electoral base” about the opposition’s identical strategies against it. 4. I resent the idea that those jurists who affirm _Roe v. Wade_ do so from dispassionate reasoning, while those who oppose it are religious bigots. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/56 "2006-03-08T14:34:04Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > I disagree with the conclusory nature of your statement, **John**. Can you elaborate? Ruling against the right to privacy just sends it back to the states. Ruling on a right to life kills abortion regardless of what the states want. No? Do you disagree with that distinction or do you disagree with how \*Roe \*would be overturned if the 4 justices cited above were to rule against it. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/57 "2006-03-08T14:41:14Z")
I disagree with your blithe assertion that any vote to overturn _Roe_ will be motivated by federalism concerns rather than personal convictions regarding the morality of abortion. I think the two are, to a large degree, inextricably intertwined – and to the extent they aren’t, you can’t possibly know what’s going through the minds of the Justices in making their ruling. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/58 "2006-03-08T14:54:50Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > I disagree with your blithe assertion that any vote to overturn _Roe_ will be motivated by federalism concerns rather than personal convictions regarding the morality of abortion. I think the two are, to a large degree, inextricably intertwined There are plenty of constitutional scholars who, while supporting the idea of the availability of abortion as a matter of public policy, believe that the _Roe v. Wade_ decision was poorly reasoned from a constitutional standpoint. I refer you again to the anthology _What Roe v. Wade Should Have Said: America’s Top Legal Experts Rewrite America’s Most Controversial Decision_. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/59 "2006-03-08T14:57:41Z")
That doesn’t contradict anything I said, **Walloon**. I agree that _Roe_ was poorly reasoned, and I’m sure there are people out there who are uncomfortable with it on precisely those grounds. I’m just taking issue with **John’s** flat statement that a ruling overturning _Roe_ on right-to-privacy grounds would not be motivated by anti-abortion feelings. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [March 8, 2006, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349/60 "2006-03-08T16:13:09Z")
> [@Gadarene](#): > > That doesn’t contradict anything I said, **Walloon**. I agree that _Roe_ was poorly reasoned, and I’m sure there are people out there who are uncomfortable with it on precisely those grounds. I’m just taking issue with **John’s** flat statement that a ruling overturning _Roe_ on right-to-privacy grounds would not be motivated by anti-abortion feelings. Well, I think my post is less blithe when taken as a whole, rather than focusing on that one sentence. But, in the interest of eliminating blitheness, let me rephrase… If the 4 justices cited by \*\*EC \*\*were to overturn Roe because they didn’t accept the “right to privacy -\> a right to abortion” argument, one couldn’t conclude that they did so based on their political opposition to abortion (ie, what they personally think public policy should be concerning abortion). Frankly, I don’t think they would do that (or at least not all of them would), but that is just my opinion. A better argument could be made that their anti-abortion political beliefs were influencing their judicial pronouncements if they overturned \*Roe \*by finding that the constiution protected the right to life of the fetus. The first ruling simply returns abortion to the states (not an unreasonable position to take) while the second ruling would find that the constitution forbids abortion (which is quite a stretch). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-the-supreme-court-overturns-roe-v-wade/347349.md?page=4)