What does it take to overturn a Supreme Court ruling?
 

This article demonstrates that there is a non-trivial number of Supreme Court justices who wish to overturn Roe v Wade. Obviously, it can't be easy or they'd have done it by now but what does it take?

How do you overturn a ruling of the Supreme Court?

you will need 2 sticks of dynamite, a 60w lightbulb, a 17" piece of rope and a team of elite trained elves.

You can't basically, because as established in Marbury v. Madison and McCulloch v. Maryland, the principle of judicial review is the final word. So pretty much an act of God would have to happen to overturn the SCOTUS.

A constitutional amendment, passed by 2/3's of each house of congress and 3/4's of the states.

So you can see why we've only had 3 or so in the last 50 years.

Really? Which three?

the last 3 :D.

yes, it would take a constitutional ammendment to overturn a supreme court judgement.

what happens most of the time is that the congress would rewrite the controversial law so that it will get by judicial review.

its kinda sad that some of our justices and our prez is against a landmark decision.

I wonder if any liberals would like the abortion question to go up to a vote? ;)

As a conservative, i would hate to see Roe Vs Wade overturned. All it would do is create an "abortion Underground" much like illegal drugs, and guns. If you dont like abortion, dont have one, thats my stance on the issue. And dont sleep around either...

I wonder if any conservatives would like the last presidential election to go up to the results of the popular vote.
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Don't try to rebut me on that comment, obviously i am wrong. ;)
Seriously, try posting sans the word liberal sometime. Free your mind.
Besides, last i heard, the majority was for abortion rights with certain restrictions.

I think change would have to come in the form of an amendment.
If they overturn it, what is the point of precedent at all? Why even keep records of how any judges rule anymore, if they're just going to ignore previous rulings anyway.

In the context of this thread, your statement is just an inflammatory troll.

When you have something constructive to add, I'll listen.

Thank you for catching that, HR. I didn't even have time to post teh troll image, you are so fast!

Oh well, better late than never, eh?

http://www.seretogis.org/files/linkables/troll.gif

Ammendment, or a new decision by a later court. Brown V Board overturned Plessy V Fergeson, for instance. But it would help to have dynamite and the elves...

As a rather large troll yourself HR, I'd assume you should know one when you see one.

On the other hand, the liberals, even Canadian liberals it seems always have some fear that the precious, and close, supreme court ruling that made abortion the law of the land will be overturned.

Its not so wrong to ask, was this the will of the people (aka would it pass a vote) or was this the rule of a liberal court?

wait a sec...the court is not supposed to reflect the opinion of the majority. that's what the legislature is for.

court is supposed to protect the rights of the citizens, however unpopular that it might be with the majority.

the bill of rights was written to protect the minority rights from a mobbish majority.

i see no need for a referendum on this issue. the minority (in this case would be the women seeking abortions) rights must be protected no matter what the majority thinks.

I've never understood this kind of thinking. Even if HarmlessRabbit were a troll, how does that absolve you from being one?

Then you continue to troll. Even I think it was peculiar how hard people came down on you on that instance, considering the other crimes you're guilty of, but this is more inflammatory than your previous post, in my opinion.

In addition to all this, your offending statement "On the other hand..." was very hard to parse. May I kindly suggest that you reread your post before submitting? If you read it again, I think you will find that it didn't come out quite as well as you had hoped...

Yes, liberals get upset when freedom is at risk. Why is this noteworthy?

Finally, I do believe that your country (anyone, correct me if I'm wrong) is firmly divided in half on the matter, much like the homosexual marriage issue we have in Canada...

This is NOT a troll.

It is a very legit question.

DO you think that the 'right' to an abortion would pass if the people got to vote on it? If you did, you wouldn't worry about the supreme court.

The answer by chavos is the correct answer. Supremes can only be trumped by Constitutional Amendment or by another batch of Supremes.

Just came in on this thread and it appears to have been highjacked, but since the original question has been answered, I will take a shot at the above.

I am honestly unsure about the results of a nationwide vote on abortion. I would vote for the right of the mother to choose. My mother, who was morally opposed to abortion always told me that if it came to a vote she would, in defference to the Constitution and the protected rights of minority groups, vote for the right to choose, even though it would make her sick to do so. I think that you might be surprised at the ultimate result of a vote. The advantage for Pro-Life supporters is that they are very well organized and truly passionate about the issue. Many who would probably vote Pro-Choice, feel like my mother and may opt not to vote. It would certainly be interesting to have a non-biased/skewed poll to get the true pulse of the nation.

Ustwo, I assume that you would vote for a ban, do you have any information that would back up your assumtion that, if voted upon, abortion would be banned?

I misread this quote and am editing this, appropriately...

The question of "what is the popular opinion?" is not trolling, your insult towards liberals was. Admittedly, the sentence was so poorly constructed that I may have misconstrued it's meaning but, from what I've seen of your previous posts, I think I got it's insinuation.

I already answered your question to the best of my knowledge, it was 50/50, so it could go either way. Why did you ignore this and restate your question?

Vote away.
source: http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm
You may be surprised to learn that according to this poll most people favor letting roe v. wade stand.

This page contains the results of 19 different polls conducted by many varying organizations from either side of the political spectrum. In my initial glance through i saw not a single poll where the majority of respondents favored an outright ban on abortion. Most people seem to favor the restricted right to abortion as opposed to an anything goes attitude. It seems that if there was a vote affirming the right, albeit with certain restrictions, to abortion the result would be the legalization of abortion. I'm willing to bet that it still wouldn't satisfy the prolife movement though.

filtherton thanks for the info. I think you are right that most people would vote against a complete ban, but would vote for certain restrictions.

Even if Bush lost the popular vote one hundred times, as long as he got the electoral vote, he is the president. I am saddened by the amount of people that just dont understand the constitution.

I am saddened when you make false conclusions because you misread my post.
If you read the whole post, you'd have known i was joking, and included an admission of my "wrongness":
I was answering a troll with a troll. And if you'll notice that i said popular vote, not electoral vote, showing that i do know the difference. I also than added my opinion on the topic at hand.
If you're going to try to come off high and mighty and preach about misunderstanding the constitution, maybe you should work to not misunderstand my post.

Way to raise the bar. You may want to check out Art's posts about such posting strategy.

Thanks, but i don't need you to tell me when i am being bad.
Perhaps you'll take your own advice the next time you decide to post your pretty little troll.gif.

I abstain!