So it is ironic - for that reason, and others - that Alito’s opinion overruling Roe leans heavily on appeals to democracy. Indeed, if not for anti-democratic institutions such as the Senate and the Electoral College, it’s likely that Democrats would control a majority of the seats on the Supreme Court, and a decision overruling Roe would not be on the table. All three of them sit on the Supreme Court right now, and all three were appointed by Donald Trump. There have only been three justices in American history who were appointed by a president who lost the popular vote, and who were confirmed by a bloc of senators who represent less than half the country. Alito wants abortion supporters to play a rigged game And it currently appears to be reverting to that historic mean. For nearly all of its history, it’s been a reactionary institution, a political one that serves the interests of the already powerful at the expense of the most vulnerable. The Court, in other words, simply does not deserve the reverence it still enjoys in much of American society, and especially from the legal profession. But when a more left-leaning movement controls the courts, it is likely to find judicial power to be an ineffective tool. Thus, when an anti-governmental political movement controls the judiciary, it will likely be able to exploit that control to great effect. Courts have a great deal of power to strike down programs created by elected officials, but little ability to build such programs from the ground up. Moreover, while the present Court is unusually conservative, the judiciary as an institution has an inherent conservative bias. This behavior is consistent with the history of an institution that once blessed slavery and described Black people as “ beings of an inferior order.” It is consistent with the Court’s history of union-busting, of supporting racial segregation, and of upholding concentration camps. Alito, the author of the opinion overturning Roe, is also the author of two important decisions dismantling much of the Voting Rights Act. It is systematically dismantling voting rights protections that make it possible for every voter to have an equal voice, and for every political party to compete fairly for control of the United States government. To this I say, “good.” The Dobbs decision is the culmination of a decades-long effort by Republicans to capture the Supreme Court and use it, not just to undercut abortion rights but also to implement an unpopular agenda they cannot implement through the democratic process.Īnd the Court’s Republican majority hasn’t simply handed the Republican Party substantive policy victories. And that’s after nearly a year’s worth of polls showing the Court’s approval in steady decline. A Gallup poll taken in June before the Court’s decision in Dobbs found that only 25 percent of respondents have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the Court, a historic low. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court’s public approval ratings are in free fall. And even if this leak had never occurred, the death of Roe became inevitable the minute Republicans gained a 6-3 supermajority on the Court. An early draft of his opinion leaked to Politico in early May, something that has never happened in the Court’s modern history. Jackson Women’s Health Organization may literally be the worst-kept secret in the Court’s history. The constitutional right to an abortion no longer exists.Īlito’s decision in Dobbs v. Justice Samuel Alito has achieved a goal that he and his fellow Republicans have dreamed of for decades. We are republishing it with revisions in light of the Supreme Court’s decision overruling Roe v. Editor’s note, June 25: The following is an updated version of an essay that originally ran in Vox in May.
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