“At the end of the day, if you say something is unconstitutional you have to show me where,” said the Yale law professor. “Roe v. Wade says it is unconstitutional to prohibit abortion before viability, basically 22 weeks. If you look at the Constitution, it doesn’t say anything about abortion one way or another…. Roe v. Wade doesn’t even quote the language of the Constitution that it says is applicable, which in effect says that liberty and property can be restricted with proper legal procedures.”
In response to people who criticized the decision for upending Supreme Court precedent, Amar argued that the primary law of the land is the Constitution -- not the precedents. In his view, decisions that do not arise from the Constitution itself should be “thrown overboard.”
“Precedents can and should be disregarded when they’re egregiously wrong,” he said.
