The Patriot Post® · Feinstein's 'Super Precedent' Myth

Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), the leftist senator from the left coast, decided to engage in her own bit of judicial activism. In her remarks at Judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation hearings, she launched into the same tired leftist mantra, reeling off a list of their hot button political issues. But she went a step further declaring that the Roe v. Wade ruling and subsequent court decisions established a “super precedent.” She pontificated, “If these judgments when combined do not constitute super precedent, I don’t know what does.”

Essentially, Feinstein was practicing what has become a common tactic of the Left, especially when it comes to their own pet convictions — the attempt to silence any dissenting opinion by declaring a controversial issue to be “settled.” By their “logic,” then, any objection to the supposedly settled issue is unequivocally viewed as out of bounds and disallowed.

The trouble is, there is no such “super precedent” recognized within American jurisprudence. In other words, no laws are immune from legal challenge or change, and no court ruling is so set in stone as to never be reversed. Abortion is not an untouchable “right.” Ever since 1973, Roe v. Wade has been highly controversial and contentious, sparking numerous challenges that continue to this day. Feinstein’s suggestion that it’s a settled matter needing no more consideration by the Supreme Court is pure fantasy.

Besides, it’s quite the ironic twist — the senator who likes to speak of the Constitution as being a “living, breathing” document apparently thinks a “right” to abortion, which was never enumerated within the Constitution, is so fundamental as to be beyond legal challenge.