Congress can restrict jurisdiction in admiralty cases because the issue is a matter of law.
Where the Supreme Court will draw the line and tell Congress "No" is in cases that directly involve the Constitution itself and separation of powers. Congress could try to vote judicial review out of existence by restricting appellate review, but the Supreme Court would almost certainly reply that the Constitution itself is above the Congress as well as the Courts, the Congress may not pass any law which exceeds its power under the Constitution, and the role of the Supreme Court is to strike down such acts that Congress passes which do exceed its legislative authority.
This is almost certainly what the Supreme Court would say were Congress to try and remove abortion from the Supreme Court's review. Their response is very predictable. I can pre-write it for them: the protections of the Constitution are not subject to being overridden by simple legislation from Congress. To do that requires amending the Constitution. Abortion is a right arising under the 4th, 5th, 6th, 9th, 10th and 14th Amendments of the Constitution (or the penumbra thereof). Accordingly, neither Congress nor any state can alter abortion rights by simple legislation: a constitutional amendment is required. Congress seeks to invidiously override the limits of its legislative power in this area by asserting that the check on Congressional overreach provided by the courts under the Constitution is nullified by the simple expedient of attempting to deprive the Supreme Court, by legislation, of its powers derived under the Constitution. Congress has no power to do so, and the law is void.
You can pre-read it.
That's what the court would say.
And they'd be right too.
Congress can't do an end-run around the Constitution by saying nobody can review its acts. At least not as people currently understand the Constitution.
There's no humility on either side here, of course, so a real political war over the issue is possible. Republicans don't think they have anywhere near the influence to be able to win that fight.
Abortion is clearly a matter of law too, not of right, regardless of what seven criminal nitwits said in 1973. The right to life is protected by Common Law from the first moments of existence in the womb until natural death - that was the position of the Founding Fathers, and they enshrined man's the right to life in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution as one of the fundemental principals of our country.
With consistency, beautiful and undeviating, human life from its commencement to its close, is protected by the common law. In the contemplation of law, life begins when the infant is first able to stir in the womb. By the law, life is protected not only from immediate destruction, but from every degree of actual violence, and in some cases, from every degree of danger.
- Justice James Wilson, Supreme Court of the United States 1789-1798, Signer of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, "Lectures on Law", Ch. 12, p. 597 in The Works of James Wilson. ed. Robert G. McCloskey (1967).
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/tay/tay_03foundingfather.html
This was from a lecture given to, among others, President George Washington, Vice President John Adams, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and many other worthies of the new government.
Congress may not pass any law which exceeds its power under the Constitution, and the role of the Supreme Court is to strike down such acts that Congress passes which do exceed its legislative authority.
Where is this authority granted in the Constitution to the Court?
There's no humility on either side here, of course, so a real political war over the issue is possible. Republicans don't think they have anywhere near the influence to be able to win that fight.
Yes, its unfortunate. The actual solution is simple. You make a law like I said, and if the Supreme Court fights it, you arrest the members of the Supreme Court who are advocates of child murder as members of a conspiracy against human life, and try them for incitement to murder (advocation of murder of specific persons is a crime, is it not?). The Police Power of the Executive wins if the Executive has the will to see it through and do what is right.