I'm on the more liberal side of the spectrum, yet it's unfair to say that _this_ SCOTUS has been legislating from the bench. The prior Democratic balance of SCOTUS did exactly the same and stretched very widely the definition of things to fit modern progressive ideals. In my opinion, politicians should have made Roe v. Wade into law instead of relying on SCOTUS to legis-interpret in their favor indefinitely.
I don't like many recent rulings from SCOTUS, but intellectual honesty forces me to admit that when the pendulum was on the other side, the same thing happened with different allegiances.
There was hasn't been a "prior Democratic balance of SCOTUS" the SCOTUS has been firmly conservative since Rehnquist (1986) and probably before that. What is notable about this Robert's Court, is that they have overturned rulings affirmed by other conservative courts and even their own recent rulings!
Almost as if the Robert's court concluded there is no point in being powerful if you can't rule, even though ruling is beyond the scope of all courts.
As for Roe V. Wade being codified, this was a moot point at the time because you had a Constitutional right to an abortion -- your right to an abortion was codified in the Constitution, a law would have been redundant.
No it wasn’t. You had a constitutional right to privacy, not to abortion. It was obviously tenuous reasoning at the time, and its shaky footing hasn’t exactly been a secret ever since. Roe should have been codified into law if we really wanted to keep it around long term.
Alright, prior SCOTUS had a more democratic balance, and at a minimum ruled more often than now in fairly tenuous ways in favor of progressive ideals. The end result was stuff I liked more than what they rule today, but them having voted in my camp doesn't mean I believe it was the right thing.
I think when the status quo requires on someone's stretched interpretation of a series of things, and this status quo is very important to people, it's on lawmakers to make the rules unambiguous.
I don't like many recent rulings from SCOTUS, but intellectual honesty forces me to admit that when the pendulum was on the other side, the same thing happened with different allegiances.
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