Scalia Says Court Defers to Congress

Congress, not the Supreme Court, should decide such vexing questions as abortion rights, the death penalty and physician-assisted suicide, Justice Antonin Scalia told a leadership meeting of the American Medical Assn. Scalia, a conservative, said that the proper way to cope with 20th-century issues is to write laws addressing them, not expect the Supreme Court to revise the intent of an 18th-century document. “It is not supposed to be our judgment as to what is the socially desirable answer to all of these questions. That’s supposed to be the judgment of Congress,” Scalia said in his speech, which was open to the news media.