Majority Rules

Save Our Democracy From Each Other

I read an editorial in today’s Spokane paper that said we need to add members to the Supreme Court in order to save our democracy. It went on to quote Justice Sotomayor and her vociferous criticism of her colleges on the court. She says the recent ruling on the Texas abortion ban is disgraceful and threatens our democracy. I find both the editorial and the comments of Justice Sotomayor to be childish rantings of someone who didn’t get their way.

First, let me say that packing the court to balance out the conservative majority would have unacceptable long-term consequences. The Constitution doesn’t specify how many justices will serve on the court. George Washington appointed six, but the number is actually left up to Congress. Over the 70 years after Washington, Congress would change the number of judges to suit their own political agenda. The number has remained at nine, however, since 1869. If a liberal Congress would change the number now, it would open up the tendency to change the composition of the court any time the majority party in congress disagreed with court rulings. Thus, I think Liberals who want to pack the court should be careful of what they wish for. The judges appointed by President Trump will retire and the liberals will get their chance. As it always does, the political pendulum will swing. The Conservatives will someday be back in control of Congress. What would they do then with a court inflated with liberal views?

I have read the Constitution front to back, then back to front, and I cannot find justification for the majority opinion in Roe Vs Wade. A majority of the judges agreed that abortion was a privilege of citizenship guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. This stretches the law beyond the breaking point and justified “judicial activism” in unrelated civil rights cases. As you might expect, the court was split five to four with the liberals holding sway. After reading and rereading, I cannot agree with the majority opinion that, “The Constitution of the United States protects a pregnant woman’s liberty to have an abortion without excessive government restriction.” Women were guaranteed the right to an abortion not because the law said so, but because five out of nine judges wanted it so. Those five judges thoroughly searched the Constitution and the best they could find was the amendment granting civil rights to freed slaves and other citizens. It remains a questionable ruling. For Justice Sotomayor to say the ruling threatens the rule of law is absurd.

Sunday’s editorial also claimed the court has become politicalized to the point that the separation of powers of our three-branch government is threatened. Balderdash!!! (I’ve always liked that word; now I have found a good place to use it.) For Congress to add members for no other reason than the court blocking its partisan agenda would make the court a pawn of the majority party. The court was designed to be independent of politics. That is impossible, the judges have personal opinions, but the court should and must remain free from influence of the other two branches. The court must be the watchdog of the Constitution. That is its job. Whether or not Roe vs Wade remains the law of the land will not change that.

As a citizen, I have mixed feelings about Roe vs Wade and about abortion in general. I feel strongly that government should not be in the abortion business. Abortion is a matter of conscience. I believe life begins at conception, and abortion as a means of birth control is unpardonable before God. I believe, however, there are circumstances where God would forgive the taking of an unborn life. Rape, and incest are common examples. It would not be so easy to judge, however, if I were the father of a pregnant fourteen-year-old girl.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and a long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free-lance columnist for over twenty years.