While conservatives worry about the kind of Supreme Court justices a President Obama might appoint, new questions about the rightness of the high court’s abortion rulings have arisen from within.
In remarks last week at Princeton University, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was highly critical of the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, which effectively allowed abortion on demand nationwide. She suggested the court had gone too far and that a more incremental decision “would have been an opportunity for a dialogue with the state legislators” and a chance for states to take the lead on the issue.
Ginsburg also lamented the “rallying point” it provided for launching the pro-life movement. “I never questioned the judgment that it has to be a woman’s choice, but the court should not have done it all,” she said.
But Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for Focus on the Family Action, said Ginsburg is fully committed to unrestricted abortion, as seen in her strong dissent in the 2007 partial-birth abortion decision, Gonzales v. Carhart. “There, Ginsburg argues that the ‘right of privacy’ theory doesn't go far enough in protecting abortion, arguing a new theory that would result in all abortion regulations being struck down as violations of the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution — a step even beyond Roe.”
— Stephen Adams
