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Reluctant Justices May Be Forced To Make History : It's All Politics : NPR
by thenewgreen

    For the justices, it has always been axiomatic that their deliberations are legal and rational and divorced from the winds of political sentiment and the vagaries of political consequences. But for the rest of the world watching the court, this has seemed a conceit often difficult to credit.

    The court surely knew it was shaking the foundations of society when it ruled against school segregation in 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education), and when it announced its landmark "one person, one vote" principle in a series of cases starting with Baker v. Carr in 1962. And there was little chance it missed the significance of Bush v. Gore, the case that decided the presidential election of 2000.

    But it is hard to imagine that the court foresaw, in deciding Roe v. Wade in 1973, that 40 years later we would still be embroiled in a political war over it. Just this week North Dakota enacted a clutch of new laws seeking to force Roe's reconsideration. And in the intervening decades the abortion issue has divided friends and even families, while influencing or determining the outcome of countless elections from local boards to the White House.