One problem is the Constitution doesn't define what the Supreme Court's role really is. It took a little while, but eventually the justices decided that role on their own, that being interpreting the Constitution and applying the laws of Congress to Constitutionality. Over the years, several landmark decisions broadened and redefined the role of the Court in many ways, and other than a few early rulings based on politics or personal feelings (the ones in the 1800's regarding slavery, "Scott" in particular), most of the rulings up until about Roe v Wade were more about the constitutionality of the laws.
In
Roe v Wade (and the accompanying
Doe v Bolton) in 1973, instead of making a ruling based purely on law (where they ruled correctly that people have a right to privacy and the state cannot infringe on it), the Court allowed for the entry of personal morals and beliefs to twist a convoluted right to privacy to make their ruling and in their written opinions, which also shaped future rulings and laws. In their opinions and ruling, they limited that privacy to the first trimester of a pregnancy. And they mistakenly IMHO applied the ruling and the opinions to both cases equally, even though they were really very different cases.
But by reaching a ruling based in part on opinions apart from the law, it set the stage for future appointments to the Court to be done with an abortion litmus test, rather than a Constitutional interpretation test. It set the stage to make the Court a political tool, for real. The ruling left too much wiggle room for both pro and anti abortion folks, and because of its use as a political tool to force the morals of those in power to everyone in the country, it led to
Webster v.
Reproductive Health Services in 1989 which placed more limitations on
Roe v Wade and then in short order the 1992 ruling of
Planned Parenthood v.
Casey that reaffirmed
Roe v Wade while at the same time permitting further restrictions to privacy. When in reality none of these cases should have ever been heard by the court based on political or moral reasons, but solely on Constitutional law.
To one degree or another, sure, the Court has been politically charged, but except for a few odd bizarre rulings, they were mostly doing their proper blind justice. But ever since
Roe v Wade it's been very different, and it's unsettling, to say the least. An idealogical death struggle is right. That's why I'm particularly troubled by
articles like this where people are arguing and discussing and probably taking bets on who or what the next Justice will be.
It's not really even about
who it will be, it's about
what it will be. We need another black on the court, we need another woman, hey how about a black woman and kill two birds with that one, or a Latino, hey, a black Latino woman, yeah, that's the ticket, or Lance Ito from the OJ trial, he's not white is he, cause, well, you know, the Supreme Court has to reflect the diversity of the country, we all know that.
Sheesh, I'll just be happy if they confirm someone who can interpret the First and Second and Fourth Amendments correctly without interjecting their own personal views of whether or not fat people should be able to purchase two airline seats for the price of one.
