Justice Ginsburg thought Roe was the wrong case to settle abortion issue
“Doctrinal limbs too swiftly shaped, experience teaches, may prove unstable. The most prominent example in recent decades is
Roe v. Wade,” Ginsburg said at a
New York University Law School lecture.
“A less-encompassing
Roe, one that merely struck down the extreme Texas law and went no further on that day … might have served to reduce rather than to fuel controversy,” she added.
She added, “
Roe v. Wade, in contrast, invited no dialogue with legislators. Instead, it seemed entirely to remove the ball from the legislators’ court. In 1973, when
Roe v. Wade was issued, abortion law was in a state of change across the nation. As the Supreme Court itself noted, there was a marked trend in state legislatures ‘toward liberalization of abortion statutes.’ ”
Ironically, conservative columnist George F. Will has made a similar argument. In a
2003 column, he wrote that the Supreme Court had tried to end the debate about abortion with its decision in
Roe.
“Instead, it inflamed the issue and embittered our politics — because the court, by judicial fiat, abruptly ended what had been a democratic process of accommodation and compromise on abortion policy,” he wrote.
“Before the court suddenly discovered in the Constitution a virtually unlimited right to abortion, many state legislatures were doing what legislatures are supposed to do in a democracy: They were debating and revising laws to reflect changing community thinking.”