Why Do Our "Conservative" Justices Show No Courage?

 Rachel Bovard has a excellent think piece over at The Federalist

entitled If Kavanaugh and Barrett Betray Pro-Lifers, We Must Blow Up The Conservative Legal Movement. She notes that conservatives always get surprised by our supposedly "conservative" justices siding with the Left to approve Unconstitutional rulings. Kennedy and his Obergefell ruling, or Roberts ruling on Obamacare are typical examples. As Bovard notes:

It is not an understatement to say this is the case pro-life conservatives have been waiting for. It’s why many in our movement willingly shed blood in the vicious fight for the confirmations of Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Gorsuch. The prospect of a majority conservative court was a key reason millions of Republicans turned out to vote for Donald Trump.

So the trepidation conservatives now feel about where Kavanaugh and Barrett may end up on Dobbs is both unexpected and unwelcome. There is a distinct possibility that Barrett, Kavanaugh, and possibly the George W. Bush-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts will find a way to hedge; to “both sides” their way into a narrow and distorted opinion in a case that, as Mississippi’s Attorney General Lynn Fitch has laid out, demands a clear imperative with regard to the dubious constitutional standing of Roe and Casey.

To be clear, with a 6-3 allegedly conservative court, anything less than a decision ringing with clarity on the dismissal of Roe and Casey should be viewed as a failure. Despite the goal-post-shifting going on in establishment Republican legal circles, there is no “long game” here. Although some will argue that any ruling that chips away at Casey is good enough, Roe is the case that created the constitutional entitlement. It is the architecture upon which the legal abortion structure is built. Both Roe and Casey must go.

It is hard to imagine a clearer majority that should overturn Roe on both legal and religious grounds. Roe was built on and entirely imagined right to privacy, a right not mentioned in the Constitution. In fact, legally, the issue of abortion should reside with the 50 states, and not the Federal government.

Beyond the legal issue, however, both Kavanaugh and Barrett are Christians, indeed Catholic. As such, each should find abortion in all cases repugnant. And yet, how they will vote on an issue that should be obvious is in doubt. Yet our conservative, Catholic jurists show no courage. It is bad enough that our Republican politicians show no courage, but the Justices have been given lifeime appointments so that the will show courage to do the right thing. Why don't they? Does this betray a lack of faith?

Which brings up the main point of Bovard's article:

If the outcome of Dobbs is indeed a hedge that splits the court’s conservatives — or, to put it more bluntly, if the conservative legal movement has failed to produce Supreme Court justices who are comfortable overturning two outrageously constitutionally defective rulings on abortion — we will be left to justifiably wonder what the whole project has been for.

That we are even in the position to openly speculate where Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Roberts might end up on such a foundational conservative legal question should itself prompt reflection, not only about the expanded role the court now plays in our self-government, but also about how we select our judicial masters.

Bovard is right. We need to change the way we choose and vet judges. We must insist they tell us how they will vote on issues of interest to the people. As I recall, the confirmation of both candidates was in doubt because the Left feared they would overturn Roe. So far, it looks like they needn't have been concerned.