Ed Whelan looks at the 20th anniversary of Planned Parenthood v. Casey and says:
By a vote of 5 to 4, the Supreme Court bungles an opportunity to dismantle the regime of Roe v. Wade and to restore abortion policy to the democratic processes. In Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Justices O’Connor, Kennedy, and Souter combine to produce a joint opinion so breathtaking in its grandiose misunderstanding of the Supreme Court’s role that it makes one long for the modest incoherence of Justice Blackmun’s opinion in Roe v. Wade.
I consider this part of the decision to be the most utterly ridiculous sentence in U.S. Supreme Court history:
“At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy was clearly demonstrating that philosophy is above the pay grade of at least one supreme court justice.
Michael Stokes Paulsen has two essays at Public Discourse on Casey, noting its entrenchment of harms and errors and declaring it to be “the worst constitutional decision of all time” because of its reasoning to continue a wide-open abortion license and it’s view of judicial power.
At the time, The Interim ran only two briefs items about the case in 1992, as part of a U.S. news round-up and a year-in-review article.
