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The Role of Stare Decisis in the Reconsideration of Roe v. Wade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2021

Albert P. Blaustein ,
Edward R. Grant ,
Ann-Louise Lohr  and
Kevin J. Todd
Albert P. Blaustein
Affiliation:
Rutgers University School of Law; University of Michigan; Columbia University Law School
Edward R. Grant
Affiliation:
Georgetown University; Northwestern University School of Law; Hinshaw, Culbertson, Moelmann, Hoban & Fuller, Chicago, Illinois
Ann-Louise Lohr
Affiliation:
Americans United for Life, Legal Defense Fund, Chicago, Illinois; Illinois State University; John Marshall Law School
Kevin J. Todd
Affiliation:
Americans United for Life, Legal Defense Fund, Chicago, Illinois; Cedarville College; University of Minnesota Law School
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Extract

Webster v. Reproductive Health Services represented the first occasion in which a state, defending a challenge to its abortion laws, called for the Supreme Court to reconsider Roe v. Wade. This opportunity presented a two-fold challenge to those engaged in seeking the reversal of Roe through the courts. First was to persuade the Court that Roe had been erroneously decided. Second was to overcome the defense of Roe premised upon stare decisis.

Two briefs, representing separate groups of Members of Congress and Senators as amici, were filed on behalf of the appellants, each addressed to one of these challenges.

Type
The Webster Amicus Curiae Briefs: Perspectives on the Abortion Controversy and the Role of the Supreme Court
Information
American Journal of Law & Medicine , Volume 15 , Issue 2-3 , 1989 , pp. 204 - 210
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Law, Medicine and Ethics and Boston University 1989

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Footnotes

†

This is a summary of the “Brief Amici Curiae of Hon. Christopher H. Smith, Hon. Alan B. Mollohan, Hon. John C. Danforth, and Other United States Senators and Members of Congress in Support of Appellants.” The brief may be found at Congressional Information Service Microfiche, United States Supreme Court Records and Briefs, Webster v. Reproductive Health Services, Card No. 16.

References

1 109 S. Ct. 3040 (1989).

2 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

3 See generally Abortion and the Constitution: Reversing Roe V. Wade through the Courts (D. Horan, E. Grant & P. Cunningham, eds. 1987).

4 Harris v. McRae, 448 U.S. 297 (1980).

5 Burnet v. Coronado Oil & Gas Co., 285 U.S. 393, 406-10 (1931) (Brandeis, J., dissenting) (Justice Brandeis identified twenty-eight instances in which the Court had reversed or qualified its own prior reading of the Constitution, but that number has at least tripled in the years since Burnet); see Maltz, , Some Thoughts on the Death of Stare Decisis in Constitutional Law, 1980 Wise. L. Rev. 467, 467Google Scholar.

6 285 U.S. 393 (1931).

7 Maltz, supra note 5, at 494-96 (listing 47 constitutional decisions overturned from 1960 to 1979); Blaustein, & Field, , “Overruling” Opinions in the Supreme Court, 57 Mich. L. Rev. 151, 167, 184-94 (1958)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (identifying 60 constitutional law decisions among 90 overrulings of prior Supreme Court decisions).

8 Reed, , “Stare Decisis” and Constitutional Law, 38 Pa. B.A.Q,. 131, 134 (Apr. 1938)Google Scholar.

9 Higginbotham, , Text and Precedent in Constitutional Adjudication, 73 Cornell L. Rev. 411, 411 (1988)Google Scholar.

10 Thayer, J., John Marshall 107 (1920)Google Scholar.

11 See Knicely, , The Thornburgh and Bowers Cases: Consequences for Roe v. Wade, 56 Miss. L.J. 267, 281 (1986)Google Scholar.

12 Views on Abortion Remain Divided, N.Y. Times, Jan. 22, 1989, at 17, col. 1; Blake, , The Supreme Court's Abortion Decisions and Public Opinion in the United States, 3 Population and Dev. Rev. 45 (1977)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

13 Rice, , Overruling Roe v. Wade: An Analysis of the Proposed Constitutional Amendments, 15 B.C. Indus. & Comm. L. Rev. 307 (1973)Google Scholar.

14 See, e.g., Ely, , The Wages of Crying Wolf: A Comment on Roe v. Wade, 82 Yale L.J. 920 (1973)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; A. Cox, The Role of the Supreme Court in American Government 113-14 (1973); Epstein, , Substantive Due Process by any Other Name, 1973 Sup. Ct. Rev. 159Google Scholar.

l5 Wechsler, , Toward Neutral Principles of Constitutional Law, 73 Harv. L. Rev. 1, 31 (1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar (“[T]he long tradition of the Court [is] that previous decisions must be subject to re-examination when a case against their reasoning is made.“).

16 Roe has been defended by the Court almost exclusively on grounds of stare decisis. See City of Akron v. Akron Center for Reproductive Health, Inc., 462 U.S. 416, 420 (1983); Thornburgh v. American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists, 476 U.S. 747, 779-81 (1986). This conclusion is in marked contrast to the debate occasioned by the overruling of National League of Cities v. Usery, 426 U.S. 833 (1976), by Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528 (1985). The Garcia dissents rested not merely on stare decisis, but on the fundamental principle of federalism and the specific dictates of the tenth amendment. See id. at 559-60.

17 Reed, supra note 8, at 131.

18 Douglas, , Stare Decisis, 49 Colum. L. Rev. 735, 754 (1949)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

19 Ferguson v. Skrupa, 372 U.S. 726, 731 (1963) (quoting Day-Brite Lighting, Inc. v. Missouri. 342 U.S. 421, 423 (1952)).

20 Zbaraz v. Hartigan, 763 F.2d 1532 (7th Cir. 1985), aff'd by evenly divided Court, 484 U.S. 171 (1987).

21 476 U.S. 747 (1986).

22 The Court's abortion decisions “have already worked a major distortion in the Court's constitutional jurisprudence.” Id. at 814 (O'Connor, J., dissenting). In Thornburgh, the dissents identify the Court's abandonment of constitutional doctrine in the following areas: plenary review of preliminary injunctions and standards of appellate review, id. at 815-25 (O'Connor, J., dissenting); abstention, id. at 798-802 (White, J., dissenting); state regulation of the professions, id. at 802-04; and statutory construction, id. at 810-12. See generally Abortion and the Constitution, supra note 3, at 253-55 (1987).

23 Thornburgh, 476 U.S. at 814 (O'Connor, J., dissenting).

24 Morgan, , Roe v. Wade and the Lessons of Pre-Roe Case Law, 77 Mich. L. Rev. 1724, 1724 (1979)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

25 Bush, , Fertility-Related State Laws Enacted in 1982, 15 Fam. Plan. Persp. 111, 111 (1983)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wardle, , Rethinking Roe v. Wade, 1985 B.Y.U. L. Rev. 231, 247Google Scholar.

26 Wardle, supra note 25, at 247.

27 Rehnquist, , Is an Expanded Right of Privacy Consistent with Fair and Effective Law Enforcement? Or: Privacy, You've Come a Long Way, Baby, 23 U. Kan. L. Rev. 1, 4-6 (1974)Google Scholar; Epstein, supra note 14, at 159.

28 198 U.S. 45 (1905).

29 See, e.g., Garcia v. San Antonio Metro. Transit Auth., 469 U.S. 528 (1985); Erie R.R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938).

30 Garcia, 469 U.S. at 572 (Powell, J., dissenting).

31 469 U.S. 528 (1985).

32 Id.

33 304 U.S. 64 (1938).

34 41 U.S. (16 Pet.) 1 (1842).

35 Erie, 304 U.S. at 79-80.

36 Howard, , Garcia and the Values of Federalism: On the Need for a Recurrence to Fundamental Principles, 19 Ga. L. Rev. 789, 795, 797 (1985)Google Scholar.

37 Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 224 (1983).

38 410 U.S. 113 (1973).

39 See id. at 213.

40 367 U.S. 643 (1961).