Thought Experiment of the Day

One of the issues that intermittently arises when voters and pundits have been discussing the presidential candidates is who they might appoint to the Supreme Court and what effect that might have on Roe v Wade. This issue is particularly salient as the court, and liberal torch-bearer John Paul Stevens in particular, is quite old. In fact Steven's, at 88, is the second oldest serving member in the court's history.

My questions are: 1) In the event of a McCain presidency what are the chances that he could ever appoint a judge willing to overturn R v. W? 2) Could Bush do it if Stevens retired or passed away before the end of his term? And finally, 3) even if an arch-conservative justice replaced Stevens, what do you think the odds are that the court would vote to overturn the precedent?

In my opinion the odds of one and two are almost zero. I just don't think the Senate would ever allow a vote. In the event of a McCain presidency I honestly believe they would explicitly say, don't send us a judge who won't publicly state that they're not willing to overturn the decision. With the very significant majority Dems soon figure to have, I think their political will would be almost limitless.

With Bush they just don't have enough time in session to get somebody up and down, and they'd do everything they could to drag their feet.

Now for three. Call me insane, but I don't believe the court would reverse course even if a vote in the bag replaced Stevens. I honestly believe John Roberts would come to the rescue of the pro-choice movement (I will now be struck by lightening). Clearly Thomas, Scalia, and Alito are complete ideologues who wouldn't think twice. But, I think Roberts is smart enough to consider the real social implications such a ruling would have. I think he knows what literally millions of pissed off women marching on Washington would look like. Really, that would be the tip of the iceberg, as I imagine there are reproductive rights groups that could advocate violent protest if we went back to pre-Roe law. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe the public would take it in stride, or maybe Roberts wouldn't predict or care about such considerations, but I just have a feeling that he'd back off if push came to shove.