Overturning Roe v. Wade would be the opposite of undemocratic

SOURCE: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/overturning-roe-v-wade-would-be-the-opposite-of-undemocratic/ar-AARw8HL?ocid=msedgntp

12/6/21

Washington Examiner

Writing in the Guardian, Jill Filipovic argues that overturning the Roe v. Wade

This is nonsense. Indeed, it is an inversion of the actual truth. Overturning Roe would return abortion to the democratic arena, a domain that has been walled off from the issue for the past five decades. The entire point of a constitution (for the 99% who failed to stay awake in civics class) is to list the things that are not to be subject to democracy. Or at least not subject to short-term whims and fancies that can sweep through such a system. It’s deliberately hard to change the Constitution for exactly this reason. Support for a change has to be near overwhelming and sustained in order for it to get through the deliberately lengthy and difficult process — precisely so that some populist (insert name of politician you don’t like) or movement (ditto) cannot whip up the votes for a year or two to make that change.

Put another way, the Constitution is the bulwark against those dangers inherent to democratic populism.

What the Supreme Court is going to do about Roe is unknown of course. What the correct policy and law on abortion should be is also obviously controversial. But if the court overturns Roe, then the issue devolves back down to the state legislatures — as was the situation before the case was decided the first time around. That means, obviously enough, that people can vote for those whose ideas on the subject they agree with. If enough do so, then the law will be written to accord with their views. That’s the democratic system, isn’t it? The people vote; the laws get made and changed. If the people don’t like the new law, they can vote again for politicians who offer to change it. So goes the democratic tradition.

Sending the abortion issue to the voters and the legislatures might be a good idea or it might not be. But doing so is undeniably the epitome, the very definition, of democracy.

I mean, seriously, how can letting people vote on something be anti-democratic?