In other words, Roe v. Wade is a travesty to self-determination because it interjects government into the peoples' ability to self-determine at the local level how to legislate morality...
I can spin with the best of them. I'm still for Miers as long as the President is for her.
Two things to bring to everybody's attention
1) Harriet is going down because everybody except for some true believers in the White House bunker are really seeing how horrible a choice this is because she is so unqualified. Bye Harriet glad we didn't get to know how liberal you are.
2) Like it or not, right or wrong, moral or not, abortion is Never going away. You can overturn Roe (unlikely) but even if you do it is never going to stop abortion. It is a necessary evil that women are going to use. Deal with it.
Compare Harriet Miers's answer to question #28 on the Senate Judiciary Committee's
questionnaire paraphrasing the wording of the majority opinion in
Planned Parenthood v. Casey, the 1992 case which reaffirmed Roe v. Wade and expanded abortion rights:
"Any decision to revisit a precedent should follow only the most careful consideration of the factors that courts have deemed relevant to the question. Thus, whether a prior decision is wrong is only the beginning of the inquiry. The court must also consider other factors, such as whether the prior decision has proven unworkable, whether developments in the law have undermined the precedent, and whether legitimate reliance interests mitigate against overruling."
—Harriet Miers
"So in this case, we may enquire whether Roe's central rule has been found unworkable; whether the rule's limitation on state power could be removed without serious inequity to those who have relied upon it or significant damage to the stability of the society governed by it; whether the law's growth in the intervening years has left Roe's central rule a doctrinal anachronism discounted by society; and whether Roe's premises of fact have so far changed in the ensuing two decades as to render its central holding somehow irrelevant or unjustifiable in dealing with the issue it addressed."
U.S. Supreme Court
PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PA. v. CASEY, 505 U.S. 833 (1992)
The court must also consider other factors, such as whether the prior decision has proven unworkableSo in this case, we may enquire whether Roe's central rule has been found unworkable
whether developments in the law have undermined the precedentwhether the law's growth in the intervening years has left Roe's central rule a doctrinal anachronism
whether legitimate reliance interests mitigate against overrulingwhether the rule's limitation on state power could be removed without serious inequity to those who have relied upon it
Miers parroted Souter, O'Connor, and Kennedy's exact reasons for not overturning Roe v. Wade while professing her deep abiding respect for stare decisis.
Miers says
"Judicial activism can occur when a judge ignores the principles of precedent and stare decisis. Humility and self-restraint require the judiciary to adhere to its limited role and recognize that where applicable precedent exists, courts are not free to ignore it. Mere disagreement with a result is insufficient to justify ignoring applicable precedent"
Souter, O'Connor, and Kennedy refer to the stare decisis of Roe no less than 11 times in their opinion, making sure to cement it as Court precedent. Miers's answer binds her to deference.
We have now learned that Miers plagiarized part of her 1993 speech to the Executive Women of Dallas directly from PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF SOUTHEASTERN PA. v. CASEY, when she used the unattributed words of Justice Anthony Kennedy's concurrence in support of abortion, saying,
"At the heart of liberty is the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life."
None of this should give anyone comfort in the least.
It is all a very strong signal from her that she will not vote to overturn Roe.