Gorsuch: Senator, again, I would tell you that Roe v. Wade, decided in 1973, is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It has been reaffirmed. The reliance interest considerations are important there, and all of the other factors that go into analyzing precedent have to be considered. It is a precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court. It was reaffirmed in Casey in 1992 and in several other cases. So a good judge will consider it as precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court worthy as treatment of precedent like any other.
Gorsuch: Senator, as the book explains, the Supreme Court of the United States has held in Roe v. Wade that a fetus is not a person for purposes of the 14th Amendment, and the book explains that.
Durbin: Do you accept that?
Gorsuch: That is the law of the land. I accept the law of the land, senator, yes.
Kavanaugh: Senator, I said that it is settled as a precedent of the Supreme Court, entitled the respect under principles of stare decisis. And one of the important things to keep in mind about Roe v. Wade is that it has been reaffirmed many times over the past 45 years, as you know, and most prominently, most importantly, reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey in 1992.
And as you well recall, senator, I know when that case came up, the Supreme Court did not just reaffirm it in passing. The court specifically went through all the factors of stare decisis in considering whether to overrule it, and the joint opinion of Justice Kennedy, Justice O’Connor and Justice Souter, at great length went through those factors. That was the question presented in the case.
Kavanaugh: Well, as a general proposition, I understand the importance of the precedent set forth in Roe v. Wade. So Roe v. Wade held, of course, and it reaffirmed in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that a woman has a constitutional right to obtain an abortion before viability, subject to reasonable regulation by the state up to the point where that regulation constitutes an undue burden on the woman’s right to obtain an abortion.
And one of the reasons for that holding, as explained by the court in Roe, and also in Planned Parenthood v. Casey more fully, is along the lines of what you said, Sen. Feinstein, about the quote from Justice O’Connor. So that is one of the rationales that undergirds Roe v. Wade. It is one of the rationales that undergirds Planned Parenthood v. Casey.
@ the usual suspects still crying 24/7 about the SCOTUS.
