Written By Chuck Donovan

Forty years after the U.S. Supreme Court attempted to settle the abortion debate once and for all, anxious activists on both sides of the homosexual-marriage debate are waiting with bated breath for high court rulings some hope will settle the future of marriage. The history of abortion law and politics, though, illustrates compellingly that judge-made solutions to vast questions of social policy are doomed to failure. If the Supreme Court is paying close attention to what its rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton (1973), and Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992) have done to its authority and prestige, it will take a pass on trying to remake the meaning of marriage.

Consider just how unsettled abortion law remains in the United States. Justice Harry Blackmun and his six majority colleagues attempted to craft a decision that, from conception to birth, made the mother of an unborn child the arbiter over whether that child lives or dies. Overnight, the laws of 50 states — conservative, moderate and liberal — were swept away in favor of a legal regime previously unknown to the planet’s legal traditions. The lack of constitutional foundation for the court’s profoundly legislative ruling — the creation of a “trimester” scheme of increasing regulation, but no prohibition — was immediately noted by scholars left, right and center.

Almost two decades... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/jun/19/redefining-marriage-abov...