The editors of the Wall Street Journal write today that liberals are scaremongering about Roe v. Wade, which is safe because it is a well-established precedent.
My column today at Bloomberg Opinion provides a different perspective on this question.
Roe was reaffirmed, but also substantially modified, in the Casey decision of 1992, which upheld some restrictions. During the next major abortion case, in 2000, the authors of the Casey decision split about how to apply it to partial-birth abortion. In 2007, the Supreme Court essentially reversed its 2000 decision.
In both 1992 and 2007, the court had suggested that protecting human life is a legitimate governmental interest even before fetal viability. In 2007, it said that the government has an interest in preventing the coarsening of society with respect to human life. In 2016, another decision cast doubt on both points.
A future Supreme Court would be well within the bounds of reason to conclude that its precedents on abortion, in addition to being mistaken as an original matter, have not offered legislators stable guidance.