As we conclude this week’s series about major Supreme Court decisions this term, I saved the best for last: Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Org. Unless you’ve been on another planet recently, you know what happened: the Court finally threw Roe v. Wade in the ash-heap of history where it belongs.
Roe was egregiously wrong both morally and legally. It was the worst abuse of the Constitution in American history, and over 63 million innocent people are dead because of it. In assessing how bad a Supreme Court decision is, one should look to both how badly it abused the law and how unjust the consequences were. As for the law, not even a trace of an abortion right can be found in our Constitution or in the history that surrounded its ratification, either in 1787 or 1868 (when the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified). Twisting the Due Process Clause to protect the right to abortion hijacked and mutilated the Constitution.
What’s worse though is that it mutilated over 63 million people. This isn’t a simple matter of getting the law wrong: it also perverted the very first purpose of government, which is to protect innocent life. Instead, Roe unleashed a reign of murder that claimed the lives of the most innocent among us. Only the unborn and certain disabled people can be said to have never done anything wrong in their lives, making them the most innocent among us. Yet Roe decided that they could be exterminated.
Roe was morally and legally the worst constitutional decision of all time. The pro-life community fought for nearly 50 years to get it overruled, refusing to give up when Justices appointed by Republican Presidents repeatedly betrayed us. But thank God: we never gave up on the fight to overrule Roe. And after Justice Barrett’s confirmation, Mississippi saw an opportunity to take the shot, and it took it. Here in Alabama, “Thank God for Mississippi,” is a common saying that usually isn’t good. But now, heaven and earth can say together with the upmost happiness: “Thank God for Mississippi!”
Until now, the Supreme Court’s finest moment was Brown v. Board of Education, in which it reversed its mistake from Plessy v. Ferguson. But as awful as segregation was, mass murder is worse. Therefore, Dobbs just topped Brown as the Supreme Court’s greatest decision of all time.
I outlined my basic thoughts on Dobbs here the day it was overruled. Like I did the last few posts on this series, I’d like to take the opportunity here to get more into the weeds. But as I started writing a blog post and getting into all of Dobbs’s implications, it got way too long. It makes sense though: the greatest decision of all time is worthy of a very in-depth discussion.
So instead of making one huge post, I’ll devote next week to talking about other aspects of Dobbs. Here’s the outline.
On Monday, we’ll talk about what Dobbs means for the Supreme Court’s “substantive due process” jurisprudence. “Substantive due process” is the erroneous and oxymoronic doctrine on which Roe was based. That doctrine also created the “right” to same-sex marriage.
On Tuesday, we’ll examine whether, if the Court finds that the other substantive-due-process decisions were wrongly decided, the doctrine of stare decisis would prevent the Court from overruling them.
On Wednesday, we’ll look at what the state of abortion law in the United States looks like right now. We’ll also explore a couple of issues that the Left could use to undermine Dobbs’s federalism solution, such as the federal government trying to use the administrative state to codify Roe and the issue of abortion tourism in blue states.
On Thursday, we’ll examine whether Congress could actually codify Roe into federal law if it had the votes to do it.
And on Friday, we’ll examine whether Congress could do the opposite and ban abortion nationwide.
Tune in as we dive deeper into these issues!