“On January 6th, a branch of our federal government was almost overthrown because politicians used dangerous rhetoric that caused—wait, hold on everyone, I just got the update. Roe 's been overturned!” said Representative Adam Schiff. “Okay, well if all the Republicans could please sit tight, there will be a brief recess while our Democratic caucus takes to the streets demanding we overthrow a branch of the federal government.”
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If you believe the courts role is to interpret the constitution and not write laws, there’s nothing about his opinion that is respectable
The judges’ purview is also limited to the case in front of them. I admittedly have not read his written opinion, having only read a couple articles explaining his separate opinion, but have ascertained from those that it mostly revolves around the notion that Roe isnt necessarily the direct precedent for the merits of this case, and thus it could’ve been decided without reversing Roe. Essentially, that the Court was kind of sticking it’s nose into something they didnt need to stick their nose into, regardless of if he agrees with the decision or not. But that this was a debatable distinction at best, so he didnt let it be a deal breaker and went along with the decision anyways.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding or not fully appreciating his opinion. If so, by all means correct me on what i’m overlooking.
I doubt I can do it better than Alito, so here’s what Alito has to say about Roberts opinion:
We now turn to the concurrence in the judgment, which reproves us for deciding whether Roe and Casey should be retained or overruled. That opinion (which for conveniencewe will call simply “the concurrence”) recommends a “more measured course,” which it defends based on what it claims is “a straightforward stare decisis analysis.” Post, at 1
(opinion of ROBERTS, C. J.). The concurrence would “leave for another day whether to reject any right to an abortion at all,” post, at 7, and would hold only that if the Constitu-tion protects any such right, the right ends once women have had “a reasonable opportunity” to obtain an abortion, post, at 1. The concurrence does not specify what period of time is sufficient to provide such an opportunity, but it would hold that 15 weeks, the period allowed under Missis-sippi’s law, is enough—at least “absent rare circum-stances.” Post, at 2, 10.
There are serious problems with this approach, and it is revealing that nothing like it was recommended by either party. As we have recounted, both parties and the SolicitorGeneral have urged us either to reaffirm or overrule Roe and Casey. See supra, at 4–5. And when the specific ap-proach advanced by the concurrence was broached at oral argument, both respondents and the Solicitor General em-phatically rejected it. Respondents’ counsel termed it “com-pletely unworkable” and “less principled and less workablethan viability.” Tr. of Oral Arg. 54. The Solicitor General argued that abandoning the viability line would leave courts and others with “no continued guidance.” Id., at 101. What is more, the concurrence has not identified any of the more than 130 amicus briefs filed in this case that advo-
cated its approach. The concurrence would do exactly what
it criticizes Roe for doing: pulling “out of thin air” a test that
“[n]o party or amicus asked the Court to adopt.” Post, at 3.
The concurrence’s most fundamental defect is its failure to offer any principled basis for its approach. The concur-rence would “discar[d]” “the rule from Roe and Casey that a woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy extends up to thepoint that the fetus is regarded as ‘viable’ outside the womb.” Post, at 2. But this rule was a critical component of the holdings in Roe and Casey, and stare decisis is “a doc-trine of preservation, not transformation,” Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm’n, 558 U. S. 310, 384 (2010) (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring). Therefore, a new rule that discards the viability rule cannot be defended on stare deci-sis grounds.
The concurrence concedes that its approach would “not be available” if “the rationale of Roe and Casey were inextrica-bly entangled with and dependent upon the viability stand-ard.” Post, at 7. But the concurrence asserts that the via-bility line is separable from the constitutional right they
recognized, and can therefore be “discarded” without dis-turbing any past precedent. Post, at 7–8. That is simply incorrect. Roe’s trimester rule was expressly tied to viability, see 410 U. S., at 163–164, and viability played a critical role in later abortion decisions. For example, in Planned Parenthood of Central Mo. v. Danforth, 428 U. S. 52, the Court reiterated Roe’s rule that a “State may regulate anabortion to protect the life of the fetus and even may pro-scribe abortion” at “the stage subsequent to viability.” 428 U. S., at 61 (emphasis added). The Court then rejected a challenge to Missouri’s definition of viability, holding that the State’s definition was consistent with Roe’s. 428 U. S. at 63–64. If viability was not an essential part of the rule adopted in Roe, the Court would have had no need to make that comparison.
The holding in Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U. S. 379, is even more instructive. In that case, the Court noted that prior cases had “stressed viability” and reiterated that “[v]iabil-ity is the critical point” under Roe. 439 U. S., at 388–389. It then struck down Pennsylvania’s definition of viability, id., at 389–394, and it is hard to see how the Court could have done that if Roe’s discussion of viability was not part
of its holding.
When the Court reconsidered Roe in Casey, it left no
doubt about the importance of the viability rule. It de-scribed the rule as Roe’s “central holding,” 505 U. S., at 860, and repeatedly stated that the right it reaffirmed was “theright of the woman to choose to have an abortion before vi-ability.” Id., at 846 (emphasis added). See id., at 871 (“The
woman’s right to terminate her pregnancy before viability is the most central principle of Roe v. Wade. It is a rule of law and a component of liberty we cannot renounce” (em-phasis added)); id., at 872 (A “woman has a right to choose to terminate or continue her pregnancy before viability”
(emphasis added)); id., at 879 (“[A] State may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability” (emphasis added)).
Our subsequent cases have continued to recognize the centrality of the viability rule. See Whole Women’s Health, 579 U. S., at 589–590 (“[A] provision of law is constitution-ally invalid, if the ‘purpose or effect’ of the provision ‘is to
place a substantial obstacle in the path of a woman seeking an abortion before the fetus attains viability’” (emphasis de-leted and added)); id., at 627 (“[W]e now use ‘viability’ as the relevant point at which a State may begin limiting women’s access to abortion for reasons unrelated to mater-nal health” (emphasis added)). Not only is the new rule proposed by the concurrence in-consistent with Casey’s unambiguous “language,” post, at 8,
it is also contrary to the judgment in that case and laterabortion cases. In Casey, the Court held that Pennsylva-nia’s spousal-notification provision was facially unconstitu-tional, not just that it was unconstitutional as applied toabortions sought prior to the time when a woman has had a reasonable opportunity to choose. See 505 U. S., at 887– 898. The same is true of Whole Women’s Health, which held that certain rules that required physicians performingabortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital were facially unconstitutional because they placed “a sub-stantial obstacle in the path of women seeking a previabil-ity abortion.” 579 U. S., at 591 (emphasis added).
For all these reasons, stare decisis cannot justify the new “reasonable opportunity” rule propounded by the concur-rence. If that rule is to become the law of the land, it must stand on its own, but the concurrence makes no attempt to show that this rule represents a correct interpretation of the Constitution. The concurrence does not claim that the right to a reasonable opportunity to obtain an abortion is “‘deeply rooted in this Nation’s history and tradition’” and “‘implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.’” Glucksberg, 521 U. S., at 720–721. Nor does it propound any other the-ory that could show that the Constitution supports its new rule. And if the Constitution protects a woman’s right to
obtain an abortion, the opinion does not explain why that right should end after the point at which all “reasonable” women will have decided whether to seek an abortion.
While the concurrence is moved by a desire for judicial min-imalism, “we cannot embrace a narrow ground of decision simply because it is narrow; it must also be right.” Citizens United, 558 U. S., at 375 (ROBERTS, C. J., concurring). For the reasons that we have explained, the concurrence’s ap-proach is not.
The concurrence would “leave for another day whether to reject any right to an abortion at all,” post, at 7, but “an-other day” would not be long in coming. Some States have set deadlines for obtaining an abortion that are shorter than Mississippi’s. See, e.g., Memphis Center for Reproduc-tive Health v. Slatery, 14 F. 4th, at 414 (considering law with bans “at cascading intervals of two to three weeks” be-ginning at six weeks), reh’g en banc granted, 14 F. 4th 550(CA6 2021). If we held only that Mississippi’s 15-week rule is constitutional, we would soon be called upon to pass on the constitutionality of a panoply of laws with shorter dead-lines or no deadline at all. The “measured course” charted
by the concurrence would be fraught with turmoil until the Court answered the question that the concurrence seeks to defer.
Even if the Court ultimately adopted the new rule sug-gested by the concurrence, we would be faced with the dif-ficult problem of spelling out what it means. For example,if the period required to give women a “reasonable” oppor-tunity to obtain an abortion were pegged, as the concur-rence seems to suggest, at the point when a certain percent-age of women make that choice, see post, at 1–2, 9–10, we
would have to identify the relevant percentage. It would also be necessary to explain what the concurrence means when it refers to “rare circumstances” that might justify an exception. Post, at 10. And if this new right aims to give women a reasonable opportunity to get an abortion, it would be necessary to decide whether factors other than
promptness in deciding might have a bearing on whether such an opportunity was available.
In sum, the concurrence’s quest for a middle way would only put off the day when we would be forced to confront the question we now decide. The turmoil wrought by Roe and Casey would be prolonged. It is far better—for this Courtand the country—to face up to the real issue without fur-ther delay.
Doesnt this advance the same conclusion I had? If you dont think the details apply, it doesnt matter that the parties involved want them to apply, it doesnt matter that others disagree with your conclusion, and it doesnt matter if a direct decision is inevitable at some point anyways. It seems like Robert’s concurrent opinion is separate merely to put on record that he doesnt consider this to be the approriate case to make such a ruling, not that he disagrees with this ruling. At worst, it shows that the Justices are making up their own minds based on judicial principles, and not just group-thinking their way along party lines.
With all the things over the years to take issue with, I dont think this even makes the honorable mention category.
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Sounds like they don’t have the votes for a national abortion rights law.
Biden Still Exploring if He Can Use Executive Powers on Roe
That was after he’d been “thinking about it” for weeks. This was early June.
https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/09/politics/biden-executive-actions-roe-v-wade/index.html
At this point would anyone be surprised if he considers using an executive order to add an abortion amendment to the Constitution? ‘Cause, ya’ know, there’s no need for the formalities since everyone wants it anyways. At least everyone that matters.
Pro-life Republican state Senator Kelly Townsend, who was inside the senate building, tweeted members of the Senate were “being held hostage inside the Senate building.” Townsend said during one period the senators could “smell teargas and the children of one of the members are in the office sobbing with fear.”
“I expect a J24 committee to be created immediately,” she added.
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Only by using another (SCOTUS created) rule. Roe created trimesters/viability. PP v Casey created undue burden. Roberts wanted to create “reasonable opportunity.”
I was responding to what you said earlier. You made contradictory statements:
I agree with this statement ^
But this statement below says the opposite of the above statement and I disagree with it based on the reasons outlined in Alito’s majority opinion.
Who stocked up on Plan B pills, for EBay resale? You’re now limited to only ~3 pills per person at several pharmacies like CVS due to hoarding.
How many contraceptive failures are these people planning for?
It’s about time the other side experience what we have to deal with when wanting to buy a gun and then a mass shooting happens and everyone freaks out that guns will be banned tomorrow.
To be fair though, some states have banned assault rifles, while no state has any legit proposal that will ban Plan B in the works. So they are really just freaking out over nothing.
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The other side? The pro-gun and pro-choice side get the worst of both worlds 
Haha, I should have said, “it’s about time WOMEN had to deal with the same thing…”
That makes it worse, since women can be pro-gun and pro-choice, plus there was a tampon shortage and a formula shortage they had to deal with. It’s the worst for gun-toting & menstruating (hopefully not concurrently 
) persons.
It’s really sad how not enforcing the law has become a “solution” to the problem of not getting things your way.
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Time to add our Indigenous Senator, AOC, and a few others to the list of insurrectionists that are a Threat to Our Democracy.
We are now witnessing a crisis of faith with the political and media establishment declaring the highest court to be illegitimate. All because they disagree with a constitutional interpretation adopted by the majority of its members.
From Congress to the press to academia, the very foundation of the Court is being challenged. What is notable is that these are also the voices of some of the most powerful figures in our society. Rather than seek to moderate the mob, they are fueling the rage with such reckless rhetoric.
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Funny how anyone criticizing how the Court had created this so-called Constitutional right out of thin air had been denounced as not respecting the rule of law and for being a threat to our nation. If the Court wasnt illegitimate for the past 50 years, it isnt illegitimate now.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass, has declared the Supreme Court illegitimate and has called to pack the Court for rending opinions against “widely held public opinion.”
If public opinion was suppose to be the deciding factor, we’d simply put these cases on the ballot each November. We have a Supreme Court specifically because public opinion is, by design, not supposed to be a factor.
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I believe DAs are elected, so they’re representative of the electorate, just like congress is supposed to be. It makes sense that DAs in big cities, which tend to be more liberal, would do this.