Roe v. Wade, which declared abortion to be constitutionally protected, and thus voided state laws banning it, was a horrible decision morally and legally. So when President Obama praises the decision on its 39th anniversary, he either shows a strikingly poor understanding of constitutional law (especially for a Harvard Law grad), or he buys into the dishonesty that pervades the opinion and its defenses.
Just look at what pro-choice legal scholars say. Ruth Bader Ginsburg called the ruling “heavy-handed judicial activism.” Laurence Tribe wrote “behind its own verbal smokescreen, the substantive judgment on which it rests is nowhere to be found.” Former Harry Blackmun clerk Edward Lazarus wrote “[A]s a matter of constitutional interpretation, even most liberal jurisprudes — if you administer truth serum — will tell you it is basically indefensible.”
