more blathering about scalia
Jun. 26th, 2003 01:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roneVia the Washington Post (thanks to ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif){kind=small}
dr_memory), part of Justice Kennedy's opinion mentions Roe v. Wade:
The opinions in Griswold and Eisenstadt were part of the background for the decision in Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113 (1973). As is well known, the case involved a challenge to the Texas law prohibiting abortions, but the laws of other States were affected as well. Although the Court held the woman's rights were not absolute, her right to elect an abortion did have real and substantial protection as an exercise of her liberty under the Due Process Clause. The Court cited cases that protect spatial freedom and cases that go well beyond it. Roe recognized the right of a woman to make certain fundamental decisions affecting her destiny and confirmed once more that the protection of liberty under the Due Process Clause has a substantive dimension of fundamental significance in defining the rights of the person.
In Carey v. Population Services Int'l, 431 U. S. 678 (1977), the Court confronted a New York law forbidding sale or distribution of contraceptive devices to persons under 16 years of age. Although there was no single opinion for the Court, the law was invalidated. Both Eisenstadt and Carey, as well as the holding and rationale in Roe, confirmed that the reasoning of Griswold could not be confined to the protection of rights of married adults. This was the state of the law with respect to some of the most relevant cases when the Court considered Bowers v. Hardwick.
Scalia seems to desperately glom this ("Oh, wow, did someone say 'Roe v. Wade'? I am SO THERE, BAYBAY!"), as the first half of his dissent consists of showing where previous judgements regarding Roe v. Wade are inconsistent with this decision. He seems eager to turn this contretemps into an opportunity to overturn Roe v. Wade, and, hey, who can blame him for trying to find a silver lining?
Then we have this nugget from who might be the most unremarkable Supreme Justice ever (certainly, in my lifetime), Clarence Thomas.
I recognize that as a member of this Court I am not empowered to help petitioners and others similarly situated. My duty, rather, is to "decide cases 'agreeably to the Constitution and laws of the United States.' " Id., at 530. And, just like Justice Stewart, I "can find [neither in the Bill of Rights nor any other part of the Constitution a] general right of privacy," ibid., or as the Court terms it today, the "liberty of the person both in its spatial and more transcendent dimensions," ante, at 1.
OK, who out there is amused that Thomas can't find a "general right to privacy" in the Constitution?
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no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 01:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 01:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 03:59 pm (UTC)But hey, their dissenting opinions are always fun to read. And if Thomas didn't write at least sometimes, I'd forget he's a member of the Court, since he never participates in oral argument!
no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 06:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 08:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-26 09:23 pm (UTC)Saying "Chief Justice Thomas" is like saying "President Sununu"... just too funny.
Re:
Date: 2003-06-27 06:25 am (UTC)Well, if George W. wins re-election, it'll be safe for him to appoint a strict constructionist as Chief Justice... but I think it will be Scalia.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-27 11:12 am (UTC)