Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent?

Jun 25, 2022, 12:33 AM | Updated: 12:44 am

Abortion-rights protesters gather following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, f...

Abortion-rights protesters gather following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, federally protected right to abortion at the Philip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. (AP Photo/Josie Lepe)

(AP Photo/Josie Lepe)

They are the most fiercely polarizing issues in American life: abortion and guns. And two momentous decisions by the Supreme Court in two days have done anything but resolve them, firing up debate about whether the court’s conservative justices are being faithful and consistent to history and the Constitution — or citing them to justify political preferences.

To some critics, the rulings represent an obvious, deeply damaging contradiction. How can the court justify restricting the ability of states to regulate guns while expanding the right of states to regulate abortion?

“The hypocrisy is raging, but the harm is endless,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Friday after the court released its decision on abortion.

To supporters, the court’s conservatives are staying true to the country’s founding principles and undoing errors of the past.

The court corrected a historic wrong when it voided a right to abortion that has stood for nearly 50 years, former Vice President Mike Pence said Friday. On Twitter, he said the decision returned to Americans the power to “govern themselves at the state level in a manner consistent with their values and aspirations.”

Opponents of Roe v. Wade, the controversial 1973 ruling that upheld the right to abortion, say the Supreme Court back then did just what some accuse the majority justices of doing now, adapting and twisting legal arguments to fit political positions.

Members of the court’s current conservative majority, laying out their thinking in this week’s decisions, have been quite consistent, sticking to the words of the country’s founders and the precedents of history that reach back even further, those supporters say.

In both decisions, the majority makes the case that if a right is spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, the bar for any government regulation of that right is extremely high. But if a right is not explicit, state and federal governments have greater leeway to impose regulations.

To those who study the court, though, the reality is more complicated.

A number agree that, for all the controversy of the rulings, the majority justices at least followed a consistent legal theory in issuing the decisions on abortion and guns.

“I understand how it might look hypocritical, but from the perspective of the conservative majority on the court, it’s a consistent approach to both cases,” said Richard Albert, law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “I’m not saying it’s correct, by the way, but from their perspective it is completely consistent and coherent.”

Consistency, though, cannot mask the fact that there has been a seismic shift on the court since President Donald Trump appointed three conservatives. And that is likely to further muddy public perceptions of an institution that prefers to see itself as being above politics, court watchers say.

Both decisions “come from the same court whose legitimacy is plummeting,” said Laurence Tribe, a leading scholar of Constitutional law and emeritus professor at the Harvard Law School.

The court majority’s decisions on gun rights and the ruling a day later on abortion both rely on a philosophy of constitutional interpretation called “originalism.” To assess what rights the Constitution confers, originalists hone in on what the texts meant when they were written.

Opinions by originalists are often laden with detailed surveys of history, as both these rulings are.

The bulk of Justice Clarence Thomas’ opinion on gun rights is devoted to history and what it says about the Founders’ intentions when they crafted the Second Amendment and when lawmakers crafted the 14th Amendment on due process in the 1860s. Thomas broached a long list of historical figures, including the English King Henry VIII, who the ruling says worried that the advent of handguns threatened his subjects’ proficiency with the longbow.

The abortion ruling authored by Justice Samuel Alito similarly delves deep into the past, concluding that there was nothing in the historical record supporting a constitutional right to obtain an abortion.

“Not only was there no support for such a constitutional right until shortly before Roe, but abortion had long been a crime in every single state,” Alito wrote.

This week’s two decisions are more legally consistent than critics suggest, said Jonathan Entin, a law professor emeritus at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.

“We can debate about the meaning of the Second Amendment, but the Second Amendment does explicitly talk about the right to keep and bear arms, whereas the right to abortion access is not explicitly in the Constitution,” he said. “If that’s where you are going to go, then maybe these decisions are not in such tension after all.”

Not all observers agree.

“I think there is a double standard going on here,” said Barry McDonald, a professor of law at Pepperdine University, reviewing the justices’ arguments that both decisions are grounded in a strict reading of the law and of history. That logic is shaky, he said, given the conclusion by many legal historians that the right to bear arms in the Bill of Rights is, in fact, much narrower than the court majority insists.

Most ordinary Americans, though, will be unfamiliar with such intricate legal theory. Instead, many will size up the court’s actions based on their perceptions of the justices’ motives and the personal implications of the decisions, experts said.

Many are likely to view the rulings as the direct result of Trump’s appointments and the justices’ determination to carry out his agenda, making the court “more of an institution of politics than it is of law,” McDonald said.

Tribe said the court’s majority has embraced an imaginary past and its claims that is only upholding the law are false. The majority justices can assert that they have been legally consistent. But taken together, he said, the decisions on guns and abortion create a whiplash effect from a court that claims to be protecting individual rights, then effectively limited many Americans’ control over their own bodies.

“I think the decisions point in radically different directions,” Tribe said, “but the one thing they have in common is they are decided by a new, emboldened majority that knows no limits on its own power and is perfectly willing to toss over precedent in the name of a version of originalism that really doesn’t hold together.”

Copyright © The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


              People celebrate outside the Supreme Court, Friday, June 24, 2022, in Washington, after the court ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
            
              Abortion-rights protesters gather following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, federally protected right to abortion at the Philip Burton Federal Building in San Francisco, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years, a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. (AP Photo/Josie Lepe)
            Abortion-rights protester Ryan Maher, of Des Moines, Iowa, carries a flag during a march to the Iowa governor's mansion, Friday, June 24, 2022, in Des Moines, Iowa. The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years -- a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court's landmark abortion cases. Friday's outcome overturning Roe v. Wade is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall) A woman wears an anti-gun T-shirt outside of the Supreme Court, following the Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in Washington, Friday, June 24, 2022. The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a New York state law that had restricted who could obtain a permit to carry a gun in public.(AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

AP

FILE - Protesters stand outside of the Senate chamber at the Indiana Statehouse on Feb. 22, 2023, i...

Associated Press

LGBTQ+ Americans are under attack, Human Rights Campaign declares in state of emergency warning

The Human Rights Campaign declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the U.S. on Tuesday.

2 days ago

FILE - People wait in line outside the Supreme Court in Washington to listen to oral arguments in a...

Associated Press

Supreme Court opened the door to states’ voting restrictions. Now a new ruling could widen them.

Within hours of a U.S. Supreme Court decision dismantling a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Texas lawmakers announced plans to implement a strict voter ID law that had been blocked by a federal court. Lawmakers in Alabama said they would press forward with a similar law that had been on hold.

2 days ago

Gavel (Pexels Photo)...

Associated Press

Ex-teacher sentenced to prison for making death threat against Arizona legislator

A former Tucson middle school teacher was sentenced Tuesday to 2 ½ years in prison after pleading guilty to making a death threat against Arizona state Sen. Wendy Rogers.

2 days ago

FILE - Police officers stand outside a Target store as a group of people protest across the street,...

Associated Press

Pride becomes a minefield for big companies, but many continue their support

Many big companies, including Target and Bud Light's parent, are still backing Pride events in June despite the minefield that the monthlong celebration has become for some of them.

3 days ago

FILE - Then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden plays music on a phone as he arrives to spe...

Associated Press

Biden, looking to shore up Hispanic support, faces pressure to get 2024 outreach details right

Joe Biden vowed in 2020 to work “like the devil” to energize Hispanic voters, and flew to Florida seven weeks before Election Day to do just that.

3 days ago

Editorial members of the Austin American-Statesman's Austin NewsGuild picket along the Congress Ave...

Associated Press

Correction: US-Gannett Walkout story

Journalists at two dozen local newspapers across the U.S. walked off the job Monday to demand an end to painful cost-cutting measures and a change of leadership at Gannett, the country's biggest newspaper chain.

3 days ago

Sponsored Articles

...

re:vitalize

Why drug-free weight loss still matters

Wanting to lose weight is a common goal for many people as they progress throughout life, but choosing between a holistic approach or to take medicine can be a tough decision.

(Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona Photo)...

Desert Institute for Spine Care in Arizona

5 common causes for chronic neck pain

Neck pain can debilitate one’s daily routine, yet 80% of people experience it in their lives and 20%-50% deal with it annually.

...

Day & Night Air Conditioning, Heating and Plumbing

Company looking for oldest air conditioner and wants to reward homeowner with new one

Does your air conditioner make weird noises or a burning smell when it starts? If so, you may be due for an AC unit replacement.

Guns and abortion: Contradictory decisions, or consistent?