"...This draft opinion, whatever may be done to it in the days to come, is Exhibit A for anyone who believed that time or history or respect for their colleagues or the justices who came before them would moderate the five justices in this current majority, a majority that ought to know it stole its way into a majority but again refuses to even feign self-moderation in the face of that fact. We knew this when Texas’ S.B. 8 law banning abortion after six weeks was decided on the shadow docket in September, and when the court let it stand again this winter. We knew it when we watched the Dobbs arguments last fall. Roe had already been effectively overturned then—we have just had trouble catching up. [snip]
"The court will surely suffer for this shattering self-own to its own legitimacy. But the rule of law and the public will suffer as well. The three Republican-appointed justices who authored the plurality opinion in Casey knew very well what would happen to the court if it disregarded and disparaged the American public, the Constitution, and itself. Be afraid for what’s coming next in terms of personal autonomy and liberty, for LGBTQ protections and the right to contraception, yes. But be equally afraid for the abstraction of an independent and principled judiciary. No matter what happens next, that’s already lost." -- Dahlia Lithwick in Slate.
