Judging Freedom - Biden Promises To Codify Roe v. Wade

Episode Date: October 18, 2022

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Hi there, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Tuesday, October 18th, 2022. It's about 2.50 in the afternoon here on the east coast of the United States over the weekend. President Joe Biden at a Democratic fundraiser promised that if the Democrats take the House of Representatives this fall in two and a half weeks, or actually I think it's three weeks from today, he will find a way to codify Roe versus Wade into the law. I guess he hasn't read the Dobbs decision. That's the Supreme Court decision that reversed Roe versus Wade. Roe versus Wade, of course, is the decision that allows the states to permit abortion up to the moment before birth and prohibits the states from preventing abortions during the first six months of the pregnancy. The Dobbs decision leaves the issue entirely with the states and says that states can prohibit

abortions absolutely everywhere, always, and at all times, or it can permit them up to the moment of birth. So you have states like Montana which prohibits them except in the most extreme and narrowly defined circumstances, incest and rape that have been reported to the police within 48 hours of the alleged incest or rape or the life of the mother where two physicians certify that the mother will die if the baby is born to term, three very narrow areas. Then you have states like California and New York permitting them up to the moment of birth, and New Jersey not to be outdone by its cousin on the West Coast, which permits abortion up to

the moment after birth. So the effect of the Dobbs decision is to leave it up to the states. Joe Biden somehow believes that Congress can overrule this, even though the Dobbs decision says abortion is not a federal issue. The federal courts may not hear cases on abortions and the Congress may not legislate on it. So I don't know how he thinks he can possibly reverse jobs by enacting some sort of legislation on abortion. This is as wrongheaded as Lindsey Graham's legislation, which said that all abortions would be prohibited after 15 months. Whatever you think about abortion, the Supreme Court says it's not a federal issue. They can't legislate on it, and they can't rule on it in the courts. The president, of course, is using it as a political

issue. Here he is Saturday night at a Democratic fundraiser. Take a listen. The Dobbs decision, the court practically dares women to go ahead and lead and be heard. One of the most extraordinary parts of that decision, in my view, was when the majority wrote, quote, women are not without electoral or political power. Let me tell you something. The court and the extreme Republicans who spent decades trying to overturn Roe are about to find out. Well, that's a pretty that's a pretty effective political argument and one that will be made and is being made, as I speak, by the Democrats against the Republicans. Of course, it wasn't the Republicans in Congress

that caused Doe or Dobbs to come about. It was Republican presidents and Republicans in the Senate who confirmed Republican nominees. My Princeton classmate, Justice Samuel Alito, my boyhood friend who wrote the Dobbs opinion. And the president, of course, is using this as a political instrument to help the Democrats. And quite frankly, the right to do so. I'm of the view that the baby in the womb is a person and all abortion is homicide. That's not the law. And that is not the law in any state. The president has every right to attack Dobbs and to blame it on the Republicans as he's been doing. It was probably poorly timed in terms of this midterm election. But the Supreme Court is not supposed to time its decisions.

The Supreme Court is supposed to rule in a timely manner. And on Dobbsbs it did. I have criticized the opinion because it permits abortion up to the moment after birth by failing to define the baby in the womb as a person. But as a step in the right direction by abolishing Roe versus Wade, it's a movement in the right direction. Judge Napolitano for Judging Freedom.