By Tom Piatak
I wish all those hyperventilating over the Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs would actually read the decision. It is clear, logical, and persuasive. Unlike Roe, it actually explains why its conclusion is grounded in the Constitution. Roe never had any basis at all in the Constitution. It was merely an “exercise of raw judicial power,” as Byron White noted in his dissent back in 1973.
Dobbs relinquishes this “raw judicial power” and returns to the states the right to set the law on abortion for their citizens. Those citizens, of course, will be the ones ultimately determining abortion law in their states, either directly, by voting in referenda, or indirectly, by voting in elections for the politicians responsible for setting abortion law in the state.
If Dobbs were the conservative analogue to Roe, it would invent a national abortion law and impose it on all the states. Dobbs does not do that. Indeed, Dobbs does not outlaw a single abortion, nor does it limit how permissive states may be in allowing abortio
The Left keeps proclaiming its fealty to “democracy” and paints the Right as a “threat” to “democracy.” Yet, as I noted in my column in Chronicles last month, it is the Left, not the Right, that is generally uncomfortable with real voters actually deciding important issues.
The Dobbs Court trusts the American people to decide how they wish to treat abortion. The Court in Roe took that decision away from the American people and gave it, instead, to nine unelected, life-tenured members of the Supreme Court.
Good riddance to Harry Blackmun’s dictatorship of death.
Let the people decide, instead.
