Well it seems that today something monumental has changed. I don't really want to talk about Roe vs. Wade in particular. Different people have different feelings on the pro-life vs pro-choice debate, and much as I may have an opinion, and as much as my blood may boil with animus on this issue, I do acknowledge I have a bias.

What's more, I don't think that Roe vs Wade is the biggest thing we lost today. What we lost is the precedent that the SCOTUS will actually follow precedent. Today The Supreme Court, the legal body whose primary function is to interpret what rights the constitution endows us with has decided that it can take those rights away. Before now, there has for decades been an understanding that The Supreme Court can add to our body of rights, but they cannot take away from it. That is, by interpreting the constitution in cases for which there is no previous precedent, they could add to or refuse to add to our body of rights, but due to a respect for precedent, they could not revoke any rights once given.

Today that changed. Today The Supreme Court has decided, that it is within its power to reneg on the deal. It has decided that any time its political predispositions change, it is fully within the power of The Supreme Court to reinterpret the constitution and take rights away. All rights granted through interpretation of the constitution are henceforth mutable; no decisions are permanent.

This is a terrible wound to our system of governance. We have lost a core part of what makes our country stable. The Supreme Court has now become an institution that each party needs to take and hold to prevent the revocation of rights the party's constituents value, because from now on both parties are going to use SCOTUS as a set of talons to rip away the way of life their opponent values and instate instead the way of life it prefers with no regard for compromise or settled law.

Before now, I was opposed to packing the courts and opposed to term limits, but now I'm not sure. The sanctity of The Supreme Court has--in my eyes--been totally violated. What is there left to protect by opposing these things. If the personal values of Supreme Court justices now matter, and if they are no longer for all intents and purposes bound as legal machines in the service of the constitution, what reverence are they still owed?

It's a great day for democracy, and it's an atrociously terrible day for our constitutional republic.