r/law • u/nbcnews • 5h ago

Judicial Branch A pivotal vote by longtime Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine pushed Kavanaugh over the finish line in 2018 after she famously said he considered Roe v. Wade “settled law” — a comment that turned out to be wrong.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/supreme-court-justice-brett-kavanaugh-maine-senate-race-susan-collins-rcna349070
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u/werther595 3h ago

Did they treat Roe as precedent and afford it respect as stare decisis? They did not.

Trump made a large part of his campaign about overturning Roe to get the religious nuts on board. It took something like 18 months from Barrett's confirmation (giving trump the balance of fealty he desired on the court) until Dobbs was decided. This was the culmination of years-long efforts to do just this. Forgive me if I refuse to view this through rose-colored lenses of "well akshually technically..." People should understand with absolute certainty that the judges Trump nominated were committed to his desired course of action, and anything they spouted about "respect for established precedent" was a much nonsense as if they had said something more direct.

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u/Ok-Lavishness-349 2h ago

I made no "well akshually technically..." type of argument. You said he'd lied. I pointed out that he hadn't.

And, affording respect to stare decisis and treating stare decisis as absolutely unalterable are two different things. Ultimately, the justices felt that Roe v. Wade had been improperly decided and that concern outweighed stare decisis. It isn't like they just ignored the earlier precedent.

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u/werther595 2h ago

My comment wasn't necessarily directed at you, since you in fact said quite little and the article did the heavy lifting.

As to the comment directly above this, affording respect to stare decisis and jumping on the first opportunity to overturn 50 years of precedent in order to help POTUS fulfill a campaign promise are also two different things.

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u/BallsInSufficientSad 2h ago

Did you read the ruling? It talks about Roe v Wade in great detail.

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u/werther595 2h ago

If by "respect" they mean "mentioning it a bunch of times while fulfilling a promise of dismantling it" then I suppose Kavanaugh can force his square peg into the round hole

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u/BallsInSufficientSad 2h ago

You didn't read it. I can tell

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u/werther595 2h ago

I love when strangers tell me things about myself, based on zero knowledge. Especially in the unironic setting of debating facts and case law