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Justice Antonin Scalia was among the most prescient Supreme Court justices in American history, and the firestorm over the leak of Justice Samuel Alito's draft opinion overturning Roe is a reminder of it.
In Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, the 1992 Supreme Court decision upholding (and amending) Roe v. Wade, the justices in the majority believed that they could settle once and for all the dispute over abortion.
Scalia thought this was outlandishly wrongheaded and said so in a dissent that looks farsighted 30 years later. Not only did the Court fail to calm the political waters on abortion, it made itself central to the political and moral argument over the issue.
If there's any doubt about that, consider the security fencing reminiscent of the days after January 6 that is now going up around the Supreme Court building. Consider the left-wing group planning protests at the homes of conservative justices. Consider the proposal from Sen. John Cornyn of Texas that justices get 24/7 security details.
It's extraordinary that now, at the very least, the whiff of physical intimidation is part of the Court's deliberations on Roe. Scalia might be surprised by that, but not that abortion has remained a point of contention over the decades, despite the Court's preposterous belief that it could make itself the final arbiter.
Scalia argued, "By foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish.
"We should get out of this area," he urged, "where we have no right to be, and where we do neither ourselves nor the country any good by remaining."
The Court should have listened to Scalia the first time. Now, Alito's opinion opens the way for it, after one of the most catastrophic misadventures in its history, to finally heed his wisdom.