Abortion supporters have “agonized” and sifted through the Constitution to find a way to make the procedure legal, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said at the University of Virginia on Friday, arguing for an “originalist” interpretation of the document.
The Constitution, he said, can adapt to the modern age but its interpretation must not stray from the intent of its framers.
Scalia, a former UVa law professor, said that historians should not be turned to as supreme masters of interpreting the Constitution. Some pretend to be “disinterested” scholars, he said, while most are liberal.
Legal professionals and historians should feed off each other, Scalia contended, noting that many law firms are armed with legal historians.
In some cases, he said, historical knowledge of the era in which the Constitution was written is essential, considering that the meaning of some words have evolved while some phrases have become practically extinct.
For example, the intent of freedom of the press and defamation restrictions can be applied to radio, even though the Constitution pre-dated broadcast media, Scalia said.
In April 2008, Scalia argued to a UVa audience that the judicial system has too often gone overboard in its interpretation of the First Amendment’s establishment clause, which forbids any “law respecting an establishment of religion.”
Scalia had argued that the Constitution doesn’t call for a complete separation of religion and government but instead seeks to have the government not favor one religion over another or favor a religious institute over a secular group.
Scalia was a law professor at UVa from 1967 to 1971. He’s now the second-most senior justice on the Supreme Court, having been appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1986.
His lecture Friday was sponsored by the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Freedom of Expression and attracted several hundred people, from the layperson to the likes of Fox News’ Brit Hume.
Scalia is promoting his book, “Making Your Case: The Art of Persuading Judges.”
Scalia said on C-SPAN in 2008 that the aim of his book is to “enable lawyers to be better lawyers in briefs that they present to courts and in oral argument.”
He said it’s important to “get to the point” and “be brief.”
“The best briefs,” Scalia said, “are the briefs that stop when the subject’s been adequately covered.”
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