The 2012 election was one of the most significant in our country. So much was on the line, including many social, fiscal, and foreign policy issues. In particular, one issue was the new nominations that the president of the next four years would make for Supreme Court justices, who are privileged to serve on the court for life.
There are nine justices, with four of them pro-life and five of them pro-abortion. However, with four of them in their seventies and likely to step down within the next four years, the current president will most likely be the one to make all four replacements.
Three pro-abortion justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, and Anthony Kennedy are aged 79, 74, and 76 respectively, and pro-life justice Antonin Scalia is 76. The other justices are in their fifties and sixties, so it is assumed that they will easily be on the court for the next four years unless something drastic occurs.
Assuming that all four do step down, and with Obama being re-elected, this means that four more pro-abortion justices will likely be nominated, and, should the Senate confirm them, Roe v. Wade will take many more decades to overturn. Chances are that Obama will pick justices young enough to be on the court for a good thirty years. Nowadays, it’s much more common to elect younger justices who serve long time periods on the court compared to the past. That makes the president chosen to elect new justices much more significant.
However, there is another possible scenario. Kennedy and Scalia can hopefully stay on the court for the next four years if they feel healthy and energized enough and if the commitment is still there.
So the worst-case scenario is that all four justices retire within the next four years, and Obama successfully appoints four new justices. This would result in six of the nine justices in support of abortion, but only time will tell. Hopefully it goes our way.
Despite Obama’s successful re-election bid as an abortion-supporting candidate, this is no time to feel down and no time to despair. Giving up never solves anything, and we need to persevere. Fortunately, recent reports have shown the abortion rate declining and Planned Parenthood continuing to close clinics. With the 40-year anniversary of the Roe v. Wade ruling approaching, hopefully more people will become educated on the harms of abortion, and we’ll sooner or later become the pro-life nation we once were.
