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> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. That's a goo

> In Roe, the court didn't write a law saying abortion was legal. It struck down laws stating that it was illegal. That's an important difference. That's a good distinction, but that distinction was not well-founded as a matter of jurisprudence, if my understanding of Alito's opinion in Dobbs is correct. Roe had SCOTUS getting far over its interpretive skis, into societal matters that had a corrosive effect on the court, as witnessed by Sen. Ted Kennedy's character assassination of Robert Bork on the Senate floor some 15yrs after Roe.

falcolas 4y ago
> Roe had SCOTUS getting far over its interpretive skis Roe had SCOTUS identifying privacy and therefore bodily autonomy as one of the un-enumerated rights which is still protected by the constitution. Dobbs was the current SCOTUS saying "no, it's not an un-enumerated right" because it wasn't "commonly practiced in the founder's time". Which isn't entirely true, there were some existing state laws on the books from the late 1700's which made abortion perfectly legal. But even if the majority had recognized that, they could have simply changed their examples to justify the change.