Roe v Wade

Roe versus Wade will be analyzed by many pundits and editorials.

However, as the legal people say, prima facie, or on the face of it, the document overturning Roe v Wade is, itself, legally incorrect.  There is a principle in common law; and the US, federally at least, is a common law system; of precedent.  Precedent means that, once a decision has been rendered, it becomes part of the body of law and future decisions must take it into account.  Precedent is one of the means of ensuring stability and consistency in the legal system. It is an important factor in the significance of the rule of law.  It may be said to be one of the advantages of the Common Law legal system over Civil Law legal systems, since, under a Civil Law legal system, a given legislature may pass a new law, and make something that was legal a crime, or absolve someone of guilt since what they did is no longer criminal.

Roe v Wade is a Supreme Court decision.  Therefore it is a precedent.  I will leave others to debate whether there are other constitutional or mandatory human rights concepts that would require or denigrate Roe v Wade.  (Those concepts would have to be extremely strong and clear, and the five decade debate over Roe v Wade would seem to indicate that no such concept exists.)  But Roe v Wade is a legal decision.  It is a precedent.  Therefore at this point, to simply overturn it and say it was wrong, is, itself, legally wrong.