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To: AmericaUnited
I am staunchly pro-life but do agree that the voters just are not ready for Roe overturned yet.

Do you think Griswold V. CT, Roe v. Wade, and Planned Parenthood V. Casey were decidely properly, under the Constitution? If you say yes, they they all stand. If you say no, then it undermines the COurt's credibility to let them stand.

From Roe v. Wade ...

MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, dissenting.

The Court's opinion brings to the decision of this troubling question both extensive historical fact and a wealth of legal scholarship. While the opinion thus commands my respect, I find myself nonetheless in fundamental disagreement with those parts of it that invalidate the Texas statute in question, and therefore dissent. ...

The fact that a majority of the States reflecting, after all, the majority sentiment in those States, have had restrictions on abortions for at least a century is a strong indication, it seems to me, that the asserted right to an abortion is not "so rooted in the traditions and conscience of our people as to be ranked as fundamental," Snyder v. Massachusetts, 291 U.S. 97, 105 (1934). Even today, when society's views on abortion are changing, the very existence of the debate is evidence that the "right" to an abortion is not so universally accepted as the appellant would have us believe.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=410&invol=113


From Planned Parenthood ...

JUSTICE SCALIA, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE, JUSTICE WHITE, and JUSTICE THOMAS join,
concurring in the judgment in part and dissenting in part.

My views on this matter are unchanged from those I set forth in my separate opinions in Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, 492 U.S. 490, 532 (1989) (opinion concurring in part and concurring in judgment), and Ohio v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, 497 U.S. 502, 520 (1990) (Akron II) (concurring opinion). The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting. As the Court acknowledges, "where reasonable people disagree, the government can adopt one position or the other." Ante, at 851. The Court is correct in adding the qualification that this "assumes a state of affairs in which the choice does not intrude upon a protected liberty," ibid., - but the crucial part of that qualification [505 U.S. 833, 980] is the penultimate word. A State's choice between two positions on which reasonable people can disagree is constitutional even when (as is often the case) it intrudes upon a "liberty" in the absolute sense. Laws against bigamy, for example - with which entire societies of reasonable people disagree - intrude upon men and women's liberty to marry and live with one another. But bigamy happens not to be a liberty specially "protected" by the Constitution. ...

Roe's mandate for abortion on demand destroyed the compromises of the past, rendered compromise impossible for the future, and required the entire issue to be resolved uniformly, at the national level. At the same time, Roe created a vast new class of abortion consumers and abortion proponents by eliminating the moral opprobrium that had attached to the act. ("If the Constitution guarantees abortion, how can it be bad?" - not an accurate line of thought, but a natural one.) Many favor all of those developments, and it is not for me to say that they are wrong. But to portray Roe as the statesmanlike "settlement" of a divisive issue, a jurisprudential Peace of Westphalia that is worth preserving, is nothing less than Orwellian.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=505&invol=833

And you argue that the voters aren't ready to handle the issue. Do you think that might be, pehaps, just a little bit "elitist?" Afraid of debate in the public square, and need the Court to make public policy? Is that not what we are fighting against here?
82 posted on 10/14/2005 1:37:38 PM PDT by Cboldt
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To: Cboldt
And you argue that the voters aren't ready to handle the issue. Do you think that might be, pehaps, just a little bit "elitist?" Afraid of debate in the public square, and need the Court to make public policy? Is that not what we are fighting against here?

You missed my point. I said more hearts and minds needed to be changed first. And no, I don't think voters are ready at 'any point in time' to vote on any issue. That's not elitist, that's common sense.

104 posted on 10/14/2005 1:53:11 PM PDT by AmericaUnited
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