Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure if this should be merged into one of the other threads, but I am, as a non-lawyer, looking for an explanation of the legal underpinnings of the objections to Roe. I have heard over the last few days that even some liberal law professors admit, while favoring the outcome, that the legal reasoning behind Roe was shaky and the law was always therefore in jeopardy. Can someone explain the actual legal objections to Roe v. Wade?
I’m not a lawyer, but I read the brief. My takeaways- abortion rights are based on the Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments. Alito doesn’t touch the Ninth at all. He deals with the Fourteenth by arguing that in 1860s, states did not allow abortion (most after quickening, some prior) so the Fourteenth cannot be used to argue that reproductive rights have any basis under the Equal protection clause. He quotes frequently from an English jurist who oversaw English witch trials in the 1700s and was known to be deeply misogynistic.
In addition to reproductive freedom, he goes on to cite other rights that he argues are not historically relevant to the 14th: freedom to marry someone of your choosing, freedom to choose contraception, freedom from involuntary surgery or sterilization, contraception. Basically arguing that if you are a woman or gay or disabled, the rights we ascribe to the 14th don’t really apply to you because it didn’t occur in 1860. Which is why this is such a radical decision.
What I think a lot of people don’t understand is that a 5-4 decision will change just the one aspect of the law, but the language of the brief is what gets used as citation and support for future cases. SCOTUS relies on briefs of one case to build the argument for the next case. Alito questions why the constitutional rights of the fetus should depend on geography (part of the viability argument). It’s the basis of a future SCOTUS ruling over the constitutionality of a nationwide ban.