Decisions of the most powerful court on Earth are never the products of deals and only rarely involve compromise. The heart of the problem is that the Supreme Court is the only branch of government which, by its nature, has no responsibility to negotiate with other institutions or to respond to public opinion. Massive attendance at the annual March for Life every year in Washington shows that much of the public still refuses to accept Roe as "settled law." Rather than calming the nation and uniting the people, the Court's flat-footed intrusion into abortion policy promoted agitation and polarization that refuses to subside. In response to the wrenching change forced by the Court, a powerful pro-life movement exploded across the country. How is it then possible that we've survived for nearly a half century under the "stench" Roe itself created "in the public perception," when a prior court committed the undeniably "political act" of obliterating nearly 200 years of legal history regarding the regulation of abortion in all 50 states? Some 23 of those states had already moved toward some form of legal abortion, with various limitations, spelled out in laws painfully negotiated and ultimately approved by majorities of the peoples' elected representatives. Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked plaintively during oral argument: "Will this institution survive the stench that this creates in the public perception that the Constitution and its reading are just political acts?. Wade from the current liberal bloc on the bench seems to be that the decision has been "settled law" for so long that to alter it by even the slightest jot or tittle would be dangerous.
In other words, this is an institution that is not just almighty, but also eternal. They made clear their conviction that the Court's will is also unchangeable, enduring forever. But during Wednesday's oral arguments over the Mississippi abortion law, the three liberal Justices went a step further. For decades, left-leaning legal scholars have worshipped the idea of an all-powerful Supreme Court, imbued with incontestable, non-negotiable and altogether incomparable power.
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