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For decades, Republicans railed against “activist judges” who “legislate from the bench.” But that was before they succeeded, during the Trump presidency, in stacking the U.S. Supreme Court with conservative ideologues.
Now Republicans are cheering on a claque of rightwing justices who seem eager to strip Americans of their right to reproductive freedom. Hypocritical? Utterly. Calculated to sew more discord in a deeply divided nation? Check.
“We hold that Roe and Casey must be overruled,” declares a leaked draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito and agreed to by Justices Clarence Thomas and the three Trump appointees, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. At issue is the court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion, and its 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision affirming that right.
In their Senate confirmation hearings, however, the Trump judges gave no hint that they were prepared to strike down Roe and Casey. On the contrary, they professed respect for Supreme Court precedents and assured senators they wouldn’t put their personal views above their duty to judge whether laws are constitutional. Kavanaugh called a woman’s right to an abortion “settled law,” and Gorsuch agreed, adding “I accept the law of the land.”
Evidently, these judges weren’t leveling with the American people, to put it mildly. Perhaps they learned from the man who nominated them that the political penalties for being caught in lies these days are weak to non-existent.
Nullifying Roe would allow any state to severely limit or outlaw abortion immediately. Thanks to the demagogic antics of Republican governors in Florida, Texas and other states, we know what that would mean — bifurcating the United States into a red zone, where women could face harsh criminal penalties for terminating a pregnancy, and a blue zone, where abortion would continue to be legal.
Will GOP judges split America in two?
By Will Marshall
for The Hill
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