Hacker News Reader

Comment by wilsonnb3 | Hacker News Reader

> why did something that was in place for 50 years needs to be revisited?

Because it was poorly reasoned judicial activism and always has been. The amount of time that a decision stands should have no bearing on how good of a decision it is.

One of the dissents in Casey v Planned Parenthood in 92 also wanted to overturn Roe, for the same reasons that the current court did.

Even Ruth Bader Ginsburg thought that Roe v Wade was poorly reasoned.

View on HN

But what is baffling is why they picked Roe V Wade to overturn rather than cut it at the root, such as Wickard v Filburn which would have undone a massive swath of the kind of unconstitutional expansion of the federal government.

They could have applied their logic uniformly but bizarrely singled out an abortion case.

Because it was roe v wade in question. Not the other case. I don’t believe the Supreme Court can issue judgment on any law they choose. It has to be relating to the court case in question

They get to pick which case they take cert on. There is absolutely gonna be _something_ out there that would allow them to work at the root of Wickard v Filburn. Framing it as "they have to work with this one case they got" is disingenuous.

They intentionally chose to go for the contradictory choice of singling out abortion while not attacking the root -- which suggests to me think this is more about judicial activism than upholding the constitution.

Disingenuous and/or incredibly naive as to how politics have been impacting cases coming before the courts.

If you want the cynical lawyer’s answer, it is simple. Wickard, as a ruling, allows the government more power and the ability to better project that power via the courts and legislature. Roe is a side-show for the government. The ability for someone to have a pregnancy terminated does nothing systemic to enhance the government’s ability to project power in a way which enhances the government. Which is why the parties will fight over abortion rights, but would never dream of trying to squash the government’s ability to regulate what a person does with material goods a la Wickard.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com