Undaunted, Justice Thomas seeks the court’s atonement on abortionWashington Examiner, Aug 17, 2019
Another Supreme Court term has ended, and once again the court failed to revisit the question of abortion. In our time, it seems that abortion is discussed everywhere except the Supreme Court, where most justices seem intent to do anything to avoid the topic. And still, each passing term, the stain of Roe v. Wade seeps deeper, corroding our system of laws from within.
But one justice is unafraid of the abortion debate. Undismayed by the court’s inaction, Justice Clarence Thomas has masterfully sown together a compelling judicial case for overturning the central holding of Roe. As his nearly three-decade body of work shows, Thomas fights for the integrity of the judiciary, reasoning carefully and speaking powerfully. He knows that the court’s pattern of avoidance is unsustainable, and so he labors for the awaited day.
To understand Thomas’s legal reasoning, we must look to the foundations of America’s unique system of the rule of law. In our legal system, the Constitution is the highest authority of all, the “fundamental law†of the land. With amazing foresight, the Framers understood the need to have a reliable arbiter of this fundamental law. Therefore, the Constitution creates an independent judiciary with a single highest authority, the Supreme Court, composed of judges who are shielded from political vicissitudes by life appointments. The task of top judges could not be more important: in the words of Hamilton, it “belongs to them to ascertain [the Constitution’s] meaning.†The flip side is that judges cannot
make the law, but rather interpret it.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/op-eds/undaunted-justice-thomas-seeks-the-courts-atonement-on-abortion
