Townhall.com :: Columns :: Precedent Schmecedent by Chuck Colson: "But stare decisis is a matter of prudence, not bedrock principle. As even liberal columnist Michael Kinsley recently pointed out, liberals did not 'express any alarm about the danger of overturning precedents' when the Court reversed itself on the issue of gay rights in the Lawrence case. The earlier decision, Bowers, was as old as Roe was at the time of the Casey decision.
And when the Brown decision outlawed school segregation, the 'separate but equal' standard that had been the law of the land for twice as long as Roe had been on the books, the Supreme Court rightly reversed it- it was a bad precedent.
As it has throughout its misbegotten existence, Roe is the beneficiary of a thinly disguised double standard. If the subject were anything other than abortion, there would be little talk of respecting precedent. On the contrary, the Court would be urged to revisit a wrongly decided case that had caused great harm."