[TBP]

With the anniversary of Roe vs. Wade coming up Saturday and Jane Roe (Norma McCorvey) petitioning for the Supreme Court to vacate the verdict while Al Gonzalez says Roe is "settled law" and he will do nothing to disturb it (reflecting his pro-abort record on the Texas Supreme Court), IN thought this was a good time to revisit this article.

Even Blackmun himself admitted that there was no justification for Roe found in the Constitution, but merely in what he called its "penumbras and emantions."

In other words, "I'm a liberal and I'll do what I want whether the Constitution allows it or not."

Some of these justices wouldn't know the U.S. Constitution if it introduced itself.

[e5man_r_u?]

"penumbras and emantions."

Which Justice has a plaque on his wall that reads "Please don't emanate into the penumbra."?
I can't remember if it Thomas or Saclia.
Both are a vast improvement to Blackmun.

Pro-Life Bump!

[ml/nj]

I've read Roger Taney. Harry Blackmun is no Roger Taney.

I know it's politically correct to criticize the Dred Scott decision, but it was decided 7-2, and the decision was well reasoned.

ML/NJ

[A Jovial Cad]

The analogy is valid, despite structural differences related to the disparate times in which they both misruled from the bench.

Taney was a typical Constitutional illiterate--like Jefferson Davis and the rest of the Southern "legal scholars" current at that time--and should have been forcibly removed from the bench by Abraham Lincoln for his manifest treason against this nation during the Civil War.

Blackmun, on the other hand, was a learned man seduced by the evil siren song of smug, comfortable, modern liberalism. His pitiful legal opinions are laughable, and nowhere more so than in the Roe vs. Wade decision.

Hopefully, President Bush will have at least three chances to remake the Supreme Court in a more Constitutional image during the next four years. I think we'll see at least that many retirements from the High Court, if not more.

[Theodore R.]

Taney was to Jackson as Blackmun was to Nixon.

[Cicero]

The analogy is valid, and has been made frequently by those who oppose abortion. The only quarrel I have with it is that I think Roe v. Wade was an even WORSE decision than Dred Scott.

That's not because I don't think the Dred Scott decision was a horrible one, but because, as I said, Roe was even worse. Scott justified the enslavement of a whole class of people because they were judged by the court not to be real people, but inferior beings. Roe v. Wade justified the killing of a whole class of people because they are not judged to be real people. Bad as enslavement is, murder is even worse.

Maybe this a bit like arguing whether Hitler or Stalin was worse than the other. But if you are enslaved at least you have some chance of happiness or escape. If you are murdered, you have been deprived of the most basic right of all, the right to life, which is necessary before any of the other rights can be enjoyed.

The fate of the slaughtered unborn in the next world can be argued, but the constitution and human law deal with this world. All human beings have an inalienable, because God-given, right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

[jordan8]

Dred Scott was property, and the decision was correct. People who think Dred Scott was a bad decision want the Court to legislate from the bench, which ironically in light of this column, is exactly what they did in Roe v. Wade.