In an interview with The New York Times’ Adam Liptak inside his Supreme Court office, retired Justice Stephen G. Bryer reprised a false and hopelessly overused justification for the legalization of abortion.
Speaking of the justices who voted to overturn Roe and legislators who have voted for state abortion bans and restrictions, the 85-year-old Bryer asked:
“Are they really going to allow women to die on the table because they won’t allow an abortion which would save her life? I mean, really, no one would do that. And they wouldn’t do that. And there’ll be dozens of questions like that.”
He’s right that nobody would do that – but not because of the way the court ruled, or the way state legislatures have crafted their legislation.
Of the twenty-one states that have either banned or restricted abortion, every single one of them permit it in the rare and heartbreaking event that it would be necessary to save the life of the mother.
Simply put, women aren’t dying because of abortion bans or state restrictions. In reality, women’s lives are being saved from danger and emotional devastation – not to mention preserving the lives of their precious children.
Justice Bryer, who dissented in the Dobbs’ decision, is highly critical of justices who are concerned with and faithful to the Constitution.
“Recently,” Bryer writes in a soon-to-be-released memoir, “major cases have come before the court while several new justices have spent only two or three years at the court. Major changes take time, and there are many years left for the newly appointed justices to decide whether they want to build the law using only textualism and originalism.”
Bryer especially has little to no use for originalism, which strives to apply the intent of the Constitution.
“First, it requires judges to be historians — a role for which they may not be qualified — constantly searching historical sources for the ‘answer’ where there often isn’t one there,” Bryer states. “Second, it leaves no room for judges to consider the practical consequences of the constitutional rules they propound. And third, it does not take into account the ways in which our values as a society evolve over time as we learn from the mistakes of our past.”
Bruce Hausknecht, the Daily Citizen’s longtime and now retired legal analyst, has observed:
“Originalism, at least as Scalia, and the current Court have defined it since Scalia’s passing, is about applying the text first if it is clear, and if there is ambiguity there, then look to the original ‘understanding’ of the meaning of the statute or constitutional provision, rather than what may have been ‘intended’ by the drafters of the provision.”
Justice Scalia once wrote, “What I look for in the Constitution is precisely what I look for in a statute: the original meaning of the text, not what original draftsmen intended.”
Of course, how judges interpret the Constitution is the age-old dividing line and distinguishes the conservative jurists from the liberal justices. But it’s a whole other thing how someone interprets facts and reality.
Justice Bryer is highly critical of the conservative majority, because he apparently believes their actions are leading to the deaths of women. Ironically, not only is that not happening – but Breyer’s vote would have led to the certain deaths of children.
Beware the tired and bogus claims of radical activists who paint pictures of scenes that never are and never will be. When it comes to pro-life states, women aren’t being forced into back-alley abortions and bans and restrictions aren’t killing them. Pro-life legislation may chafe the abortionists – but it calms and celebrates the mother, child, and all who love and champion the pre-born.
Image from Getty.
