What, exactly, is the problem with Roe? The problem, I believe, is that it has little connection to the Constitutional right it purportedly interpreted. A constitutional right to privacy broad enough to include abortion has no meaningful foundation in constitutional text, history, or precedent - at least, it does not if those sources are fairly described and reasonably faithfully followed.My argument, precisely.
There are other prominent legal scholars -- pro- and anti-abortion -- who agree that Roe v. Wade was decided wrongly, though sometimes for other reasons. For a roundup of such views, see this.
Wait . . . there's more. I wrote here that
Roe v. Wade is nothing more than an illogical, ill-founded, politically expedient position staked out by seven justices who were caught in the tide of "personal liberation." That tide, which rose in the 1960s and has yet to fully recede, is powered by the perverse belief that liberty is to be found in license.William Saletan, writing at Legal Affairs, in a review of Linda Greenhouse's Becoming Justice Blackmun, says this:
Was [Blackmun] a feminist crusader? Or was he, as his files suggest, more of an old-fashioned conservative? At his retirement ceremony two decades after Roe, Blackmun portrayed the case as a pioneering advance in a difficult climate, "a step that had to be taken as we go down the road toward the full emancipation of women."Enough said.
