Well President Bush nominated
White House counsel Harriet Miers
to succeed Sandra Day O'Connor
on the Supreme Court. Since Miers
has never served as a judge, her views --
that is, how she would rule on ROE V.
WADE if an appeal comes before her
on the bench -- are uncertain.

That's why we can, once again, look
forward to by bias reporters & liberal
congressmen/women hundreds of questions
all designed to elicit the same answer:

What does Miers think of ROE V. WADE?
Talk about a farce!

Given ROE's centrality, not only to the law,
but also to our entire culture, it's worthwhile
to understand what ROE's author, Justice
Harry Blackmun, intended its reach to be.

For most of the thirty-two years since the
ruling, all we had to go on was the written
opinion in ROE itself and its companion
case, DOE V. BOLTON. Then on the
fifth anniversary of Blackmun's death,
the Library of Congress released his
papers to the public.

What these papers show is that, in the
words of the LOS ANGELES TIMES,
Blackmun's goal was to "write a narrow
ruling that would reform abortion laws,
not repeal them."

What's striking about the story that emerges
from these papers is the extent to which
many of the ideas we associate with ROE
were explicitly rejected by Blackmun and
company. For instance, on the day ROE
was announced, Chief Justice Burger said
"plainly, the court today rejects any claim
that the Constitution requires abortion on
demand." In a never-issued news release,
Blackmun made the same point.

What's more, Blackmun saw laws banning
all abortions as infringements on the doctor's
rights, not the woman's. During a private
conference with the other justices, he insisted
that "there is no absolute right to do with one's
body what you like. . . . " To Blackmun, ROE
was about vindicating "the right of the
physician to administer medical treatment
according to his professional judgment. . . .
" And at the time, Chief Justice Burger
predicted that ROE would not have
"sweeping consequences."

As history shows, ROE and DOE went far
beyond the author's professed intentions
and his colleagues' predictions. Much of
the blame lies at Blackmun's feet:

In DOE, he included a woman's emotional
health as part of the definition of health,
which, regardless of what he intended,
led directly to abortion-on-demand.

It's difficult to imagine a group of intelligent
men more in the dark about the consequences
of their actions. It only reinforces my
conviction that ROE is not only bad law:
It's an embarrassment to American law,
which makes the way that ROE has come
to dominate our public life especially grotesque.

In nominating Harriet Miers, someone who
has been very visible, publicly trying
to keep the ABA from endorsing ROE V.
WADE, President Bush has obviously
decided that the time has come for a
public debate. And th
Howdy Yourfriend | Homepage | 10.11.05 - 9:26 pm | #