The Left's Verdict on Roe

One of the little-acknowledged legacies of Roe — putting aside the moral consequences for a moment — is a generation infected by the pernicious influence of shoddy intellectual (non)-reasoning.

This week’s discussion of parental notification prior to abortion is a perfect example. Liberals tie themselves into patently ridiculous contortions trying to defend allowing a child to have a major medical procedure without her parent’s knowledge, while the same child needs a parental signature for an ear-piercing.

This intellectual lunacy should be worrisome. And honest liberals know it.

Tim Carney has a terrific round-up of quotes, with full citations, from the Left on the lack of solid legal reasoning in Roe v. Wade.

The Left on Roe v. Wade

Ruth Bader Ginsburg Supreme Court “Heavy-handed judicial intervention”	Alan Dershowitz Harvard Law “judicial activism “
Laurence Tribe Harvard Law “its own verbal smokescreen”	Michael Kinsley Los Angeles Times “constitutional origami”
Jeff Rosen The New Republic “[no] intelligible principle”	Cass Sunstein Univ. of Chicago “way overreached”
John Hart Ely Yale, Harvard, Stanford “frightening”	William Saletan Slate magazine “invention, overreach, arbitrariness, textual indifference”

Of course, the insuperable underlying challenge for intellectuals on the Left is one that they resolutely refuse to admit. Roe is a stinker. But it’s not simply because Blackmun did a poor job of constructing his case.

Roe fails because the attempt to craft an intellectually sound case for abortion is an exercise in defending the indefensible.