Precedent

Judge Roberts -- confronting senators fearful that, if confirmed, Justice Roberts might vote to overturn Roe v. Wade -- would do well to align himself with liberal icon William O. Douglas:

A judge looking at a constitutional decision may have compulsions to revere past history and accept what was once written. But he remembers above all else that it is the Constitution which he swore to support and defend, not the gloss which his predecessors may have put on it.

Douglas, Stare Decisis, 49 Colum.L.Rev. 735, 736 (1949)