The decision by the Supreme Court to overturn
Roe v. Wade offers great encouragement. The justices in the majority detailed technical reasons to support their ruling, reasons arising from their theory of constitutional interpretation. But Justice Alito, author of the majority opinion, often adverts to the moral reality of abortion: It involves the taking of an innocent life. His majority opinion does not require the laws of our country to respect the sanctity of life from conception to natural death. That matter will be decided by state legislatures. But the
Dobbs decision removes the scandal of
Roe, a misbegotten judgment that found a right of privacy (and, later in
Casey, a “liberty interest”) that could not function without a systematic denial of the sanctity of life.
After
Dobbs, we move to a new political, moral, and even spiritual situation.
Roe was part of a decades-long usurpation of the democratic process. After World War II, liberal elites were imbued with confidence in social progress, and they were frustrated by the cultural immobility of the American public. Earl Warren was a California Republican with progressive commitments, a not uncommon species in mid-century American politics. His appointment as chief justice inaugurated a period of judicial activism that had bipartisan support among the Great and the Good. [
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