Is Stare Decisis A Sufficient Reason For A Catholic Supreme Court Justice To Uphold Roe v. Wade?

Head over to Mirror of Justice to read the discussion between Thomas Berg and Rick Garnett regarding whether John Roberts, as a Supreme Court Justice, "might well face a conflict between his judgment about Roe/Casey as stare decisis versus his Catholic conscience."

Very interesting.

For my part, I think stare decisis is an insufficient basis for a Catholic Supreme Court Justice to vote to uphold decisions as clearly immoral (not to mention extra-Constitutional) as Roe v. Wade and its progeny.

The basis for my opinion, however, is NOT a Natural Law one, but rather is premised on the fact that the Constitution of the United States clearly DOES NOT mandate that abortion be legal. Stare decisis is more of a "prudential" rule of judicial construction rather than a mandatory one - voting to uphold a decision out of respect for precedent is not required, especially where the precedent was wrongly decided under the Constitution. But, for Judge Roberts as a Catholic, not only was Roe v. Wade wrongly decided under the Constitution, he has to deal with the additional issue of that decision being a clearly immoral one.

Were Judge Roberts to vote, solely out of a "respect for precedent", to uphold a decision that he knows is not mandated by the Constitution, and that he also knows to be out of step with the teachings of his Church, that would, in my view, constitute a formal cooperation with a grave evil.