Remembering Justice Scalia's Dissent On The 40th Anniversary Of Roe v. Wade

Today marks the 40th anniversary of the illegitimate Supreme Court ruling in Roe v. Wade (1973). This is what Justice Antonin Scalia had to say in his dissent to Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992):

"The States may, if they wish, permit abortion on demand, but the Constitution does not require them to do so. The permissibility of abortion, and the limitations upon it, are to be resolved like most important questions in our democracy: by citizens trying to persuade one another and then voting... [T]he issue in this case: not whether the power of a woman to abort her unborn child is a 'liberty' in the absolute sense; or even whether it is a liberty of great importance to many women. Of course it is both. The issue is whether it is a liberty protected by the Constitution of the United States. I am sure it is not...for the same reason I reach the conclusion that bigamy is not constitutionally protected--because of two simple facts: (1) the Constitution says absolutely nothing about it, and (2) the longstanding traditions of American society have permitted it to be legally proscribed... [T]he best the Court can do to explain how it is that the word 'liberty' must be thought to include the right to destroy human fetuses is to rattle off a collection of adjectives that simply decorate a value judgment and conceal a political choice... We should get out of this area, where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining."

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