Supreme Court and Abortion

McDowell seems to have faith that the Supreme Court, as reconstituted under Presidents Reagan and Bush, will stick to the law as written and not be tempted “to legislate.” To the contrary, almost a century ago, Finley Peter Dunne’s fictional Irish philosopher, Mr. Dooley, said: “No matter whether th’ Constitution follows th’ flag or not, th’ Supreme Coort follows th’ iliction returns.”

And I believe it always will. While not denigrating any Supreme Court justice’s legal competence, all of us see the truth through our own prism and all justices either have been a politician or had a politician as a mentor. I doubt that Presidents Reagan and Bush, neither a lawyer, were overwhelmed by an abstract argument for “strict constructionism.” As politicians, they just used it as a code word to stop the “legislating” by the court that they did not like.

Either “strict constructionism” is a clever phrase to cloak a political agenda, or if its conservative proponents think it is really achievable, they better listen to the wisdom of Mr. Dooley.

FLOYD A. OLIVER, Los Angeles