Pro-Choice Roberts

The judge said he recognized that the abortion ruling was "settled as a precedent of the court, entitled to respect under principles of stare decisis," the Latin term describing the concept that extra weight should be given to established rulings of the court.

I'm not too disturbed by Roberts' testimony yesterday that Roe is settled precedent. Precedent can always be overturned without doing violence to stare decisis, if the Court determines that the precedent is no longer binding, given changes in society or changes about what we know today when contrasted with what we knew before.

Here are a few such changes:

1. Increased understanding of a fetus' ability to feel pain;
2. Increased viability of a fetus outside the womb at earlier and earlier stages;
3. A noticeable and venomous split of public opinion about abortion.

Heck, we could even use the sex-obsessed culture's favorite crusade against them: With all the free condoms going around these days, we don't need abortions any more.

We know that's not the case (increase promiscuity results in more unwanted pregnancies), but they can't admit that without undermining their cherished condom crusade.