"In a pluralistic society composed of a multitude of belief systems, the Court seems intent on keeping certain issues-those likely to be religiously or theologically divisive-out of the forum of effective public discussion. By not allowing the abortion question to be legislatively determined, the Court has effectively "depoliticized" the issue. If the people's representatives are incapable of acting on an issue after its exhaustion by discussion, it makes no sense, politically, to talk about it. Lemon v. Kurtzman, where the Court invalidated a Pennsylvania statute reimbursing church-related schools for costs of teachers salaries and textbooks in specific secular subjects, is an even clearer illustration of the Court's attempt to "depoliticize" a public issue and, incidentally-to return to the anti-communitarian theme-to erode the significance of religion as an intermediating agency between the individual and mass society. Remarked Chief Justice Burger: "Ordinarily political debate and division, however vigorous or even partisan, are normal and healthy manifestations of our democratic system of government, but political division along religious lines was one of the principal evils against which the First Amendment was intended to protect. The potential divisiveness of such conflict is a threat to the normal political process." Thus is social peace achieved. This analysis is a rather circumspect way of saying that the result in Roe v. Wade not only conforms to the individualistic ethic at the heart of the conventional "Madisonian" interpretation of American constitutionalism, but is also understandable in the light of the pluralistic nature of American society."
Roe v. Wade

January 1, 1970

Quote Details

Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Added on April 10, 2026
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English

Sources

p.283

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade