What's with the obsession with Roe v. Wade rather than Planned Parenthood v. Casey?

[All Along The Watchtower]

The latter is far more relevant to the situation on the ground than the former. Roe has effectively been gutted by both Casey and many Republican state governments, and Casey is a more recent precedent than Roe, so why focus on that poorly written and bizarrely reasoned ruling from nearly five decades ago that no one follows anyway?

(There is also the "global gag rule" that any Republican President will institute as an executive order, but that's less important obviously.)

[brucejoel99]

Most people have never heard of Casey, even though it's the abortion law of the land as it stands today, but they've heard of Roe because it was the case that 'legalized abortion' (that is, it allowed people to access abortion legally in that it took away the power of the states to ban it), hence why the GOP & their talking points remain obsessed with Roe as a sort-of dog-whistle: they'll appoint justices who'll eliminate the right to privacy & permit states to ban abortion.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

Roe is to the U.S. abortion issue as Plato is to Western Philosophy.

The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.

[MarkD]

What's with the implication that there's some huge and important difference between Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey? The two decisions are much more similar than they are dissimilar. Both decisions claim that the Due Process Clause protects a woman's right to terminate pregnancy up to a certain point in gestation. Both decisions thwart the most important goal of the pro-life movement. Planned Parenthood emphasized the importance of stare decisis, and upheld the "essential holding" of Roe. I don't get your claim, PR, that Planned Parenthood "effectively ... gutted" Roe; that kind of statement seems to be just plain hyperbole. Would you care to elaborate? Carefully, and without hyperbole?

I also do not understand exactly what you mean by "poorly written and bizarrely reasoned" when you refer to the Roe opinion. Don't get me wrong: I am staunchly anti-Roe v. Wade and anti-Planned Parenthood v. Casey myself. But that has to do with my interpretation of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment (and likewise how I interpret "privacy" from the Fourth Amendment). I think you and I may be on the same page regarding that topic, but I am not clear what you mean by "poorly written and bizarrely reasoned." I happen to think that Justice Blackmun did a piss-poor job of interpreting a few of the precedents that he cited when he claimed that there are a long line of precedents showing that "privacy" has long been recognized as a constitutionally-protected "right." Is that what you mean?

As I said, I am also anti-Planned Parenthood. My least favorite quote from that opinion goes like this: "Our obligation is to define the liberty of all, not to mandate our own moral code." The first part of that statement is completely false, and because it is, the remainder of the statement is infuriatingly hypocritical. Do you agree with me about that?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Most people have never heard of Casey, even though it's the abortion law of the land as it stands today, but they've heard of Roe because it was the case that 'legalized abortion' (that is, it allowed people to access abortion legally in that it took away the power of the states to ban it), hence why the GOP & their talking points remain obsessed with Roe as a sort-of dog-whistle: they'll appoint justices who'll eliminate the right to privacy & permit states to ban abortion.

I don't agree that permitting states to ban abortion would constitute eliminating the right to privacy (unless of course the language of the decision specified that--which, if a Justice Cotton or a Justice Ho authored the controlling opinion, it very well might). You may not like the idea of a constitutional right to privacy that's narrow enough to exclude the termination of a pregnancy but broad enough to include other things, but it's not a logical absurdity, any more than is the existence of other medical interventions that there isn't a constitutional right to access.

[Donerail]

I also do not understand exactly what you mean by "poorly written and bizarrely reasoned" when you refer to the Roe opinion. Don't get me wrong: I am staunchly anti-Roe v. Wade and anti-Planned Parenthood v. Casey myself. But that has to do with my interpretation of the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment (and likewise how I interpret "privacy" from the Fourth Amendment). I think you and I may be on the same page regarding that topic, but I am not clear what you mean by "poorly written and bizarrely reasoned." I happen to think that Justice Blackmun did a piss-poor job of interpreting a few of the precedents that he cited when he claimed that there are a long line of precedents showing that "privacy" has long been recognized as a constitutionally-protected "right." Is that what you mean?

Among those of us who accept contemporary 14th Amendment jurisprudence, there is a general consensus that Blackmun's opinion in Roe is rather dated — the "trimester" division waded into medical science in order to develop what is still an arbitrary set of cutoff points, and there's been a long-running feminist critique (including from Justice Ginsburg) that the decision prioritizes the privacy rights of the doctors rather than the gendered impact of abortion restrictions.

Blackmun, to his credit, seems to have walked back this position in his concurrence in Casey, writing that "this assumption—that women can simply be forced to accep the 'natural' status and incidents of motherhood—appears to rest upon a conception of women's role that has triggered the protection of the Equal Protection Clause." Ginsburg also suggests that this, rather than (or in addition to) the Due Process Clause, is the proper grounding for a right to abortion in her opinion in Carhart. (This is also — though my opinion matters a bit less than theirs — where I come down on the issue.)

[Beet]

Because Roe is historically important to our country's commitment to womens' rights. Casey is essentially irrelevant. Good people can agree as to whether abortion is a right or "infanticide" as pro-lifers believe.

The civil rights movement has the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act and the Fair Housing Act. The women's rights movement has Roe. The Supreme Court probably wasn't very smart to insert itself into the process of social revolution. But what's done is done. Since Roe, we've rejected the Equal Rights Amendment, rejected Family and Medical Leave, rejected a Woman President, had a 12-year backlash under Reagan-Bush, eight years of a Democratic president who routinely was accused of rape and sexual harassment, eight years of a Christian conservative evangelical president, eight years of a Democrat who was known more for playing basketball and golf than having women in his inner circle, and four years of a man who openly disrespects women. But throughout all this time women have had Roe as the only solid foundation to say that the gains of the '70s won't be turned back.

The importance of Roe is its symbolic value.

Voters know this; that is why 60%-70% routinely say they support upholding Roe, including a majority of Republicans, even though a lower percentage say they are pro-choice. More people support upholding Roe than support the substantive issue behind it, because they know that overturning it represents going back.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Liberals like to pretend that abortion case law wasn't already massively reduced. There's also Gonzales v. Carhart.

[Kingpoleon]

I don't agree that permitting states to ban abortion would constitute eliminating the right to privacy (unless of course the language of the decision specified that--which, if a Justice Cotton or a Justice Ho authored the controlling opinion, it very well might). You may not like the idea of a constitutional right to privacy that's narrow enough to exclude the termination of a pregnancy but broad enough to include other things, but it's not a logical absurdity, any more than is the existence of other medical interventions that there isn't a constitutional right to access.

Gorsuch won’t rule to abolish a fundamental right to privacy, but Breyer might. The latter is generally liberal, but he’s been a mildly consistent vote with the originalists on privacy issues.