The first line is significant as the central philosophy of stare decisis defense that emphasizes the importance of consistency for the legitimacy of the Supreme Court. The line of the excerpt in Showalter (2020, p. 20) states that “liberty finds no refuge in a jurisprudence of doubt.” The idea is that the Supreme Court should not make decisions under political pressure, and emotions or other irrational factors should not dictate the Court’s decisions. Therefore, only fundamental shifts in perception of an issue can result in substantial changes to the previous position of the Supreme Court.
In my opinion, the defense of stare decisis is persuasive in that case, as the factors that the Court mentions, such as emotional reaction and political pressure, are common for individuals and even states. Moreover, the Court states that no new consensus was reached since the precedent; and as the situation is still divisive, there is no urge to rethink the previous decision immediately. This part about the absence of general agreement might be the most questionable, and it leaves room for counter-argumentation. However, all in all, the Court’s claim that any overruling is to be performed cautiously and only in the presence of fundamental changes in the subject holds firm.
As mentioned before, the Court’s position leaves room for counter-argumentation considering the public opinion and new consensus on the issue. This is confirmed by the statement that “O’Connor did not feel that society had developed a concurrence against abortion similar to the concurrence against separate-but-equal education that resulted in Brown v. Board of Education overruling Plessy v. Ferguson” (Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1992). Therefore, my own line of argumentation would be built around the idea that there is a visible objective public consensus regarding that topic.
References
Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833 (1992). Web.
Showalter, S. (2020). The law of healthcare administration (9th ed.). Health Administration Press.