After the U.S. Supreme Court issued its ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, many began to question its effect on the law, women and healthcare. But others started questioning how the court even works.
The U.S. Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade by a 6 – 3 vote. Three of the justices who voted in favor of overturning the ruling were put on the court by former President Donald Trump.
Michael Gerhardt, a distinguished professor of jurisprudence at the UNC School of Law, said those three justices were put there on the promise to vote to overrule Roe. He said the Supreme Court decision was not a surprise given the politicization of the court.
“It’s been no secret for decades that the Republican party, which has had a platform promising such a thing, that the party is mobilized behind this,” Gerhardt said. There’s no issue that mobilizes Republicans more than changing the courts and particularly arranging for the overruling of Roe v. Wade.”
Gerhardt said the Supreme Court being completely apolitical is just a myth and has been that way since George Washington appointed the first justices. Washington appointed justices who were strong Federalists, Abraham Lincoln appointed justices who supported his war policies and reconstruction, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt appointed justices who supported the New Deal.
Gerhardt said the justices are also used as a tool for party agenda. Several presidents have expanded the court and thinned the bench before it settled at nine justices in 1869. Roosevelt attempted to expand the court again in 1937 with a potential for a bench of up to 15 justices. Similarly, Democrats in the House of Representatives introduced a bill during the Trump presidency to increase the bench to 13 to combat a conservative majority but that bill was never brought to the floor.
In the initial 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, every Republican on the court but one voted in the majority. Gerhardt said this summer’s Dobbs decision and overturning of precedent reflects the changed priorities of the Republican party.
“Republican judges are not the same as they used to be,” Gerhardt said. “These justices that voted to overturn Roe are not interested in following national election returns. Quite frankly, I think they’re interested in fulfilling their party’s agenda of which overruling Roe is just one thing.”
Gerhardt said the Republican justices of 1973 were more representative of classic conservatives who respected precedent which Roe v. Wade was grounded in. Republican judges like Amy Coney Barrett, Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch were appointed because they had pledged not to respect precedent.
“This is just the beginning of a newer age of constitutional decision making,” Gerhardt said. “I think that perhaps one thing that may be a great byproduct of all this is for people to become more politically engaged. I think the extent to which people are not happy or happy, they should become politically engaged and vote their preferences – and then stick by those votes.”
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
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