In most other countries, if there's a difficult political decision to be made, it's made through the political process.
Society wants abortion to be legal/illegal? Political parties make it part of their election platform, and if elected they change the law. Judges then interpret the law as written, and any bugs are ironed out by the politicians amending the law.
But in America, they face this difficult political decision - and it gets punted to a bunch of elderly judges? Who are appointed for life? Then for half a century the legality of abortion is basically decided at random, depending on which party is in power when these septuagenarians die?
It's the kind of blame-ambiguifying ("Can't do anything, law says so," "Can't do anything, courts say so.") that happens when the opposition to a given reform are perfectly happy to beat, bomb, and shoot anyone who dares to try to [integrate schools/secure voting rights/offer reproductive care/marry two people of the same gender/etc.].
What you're actually asking for is for America to finally undertake its own form of denazification, and hoo boy, if you think that things are rough now...
Remember, there was an actual insurrection by these folks 4 years ago. They literally entered the building housing our legislature and threatened the lives of our lawmakers. There is, like, zero question of why there's been a chilling effect on finding legislative remedies to American issues, even if you cut out the massive influence of lobbyists. No one wants to get Abe'd.
There is a direct line between the KKK, American Nazi Party, and Republicans and "moderate" Democrats who are just over the past few years aging (dying) out of office. The ideology of the latter is going strong. But I appreciate the insult; it's the kind of hysterical mischaracterization that tends to come out when one is close to prescribing the proper corrective action to right-wing malfeasance.
> They literally entered the building housing our legislature
Just for the record, there's nothing special about doing this. It's actually fairly surprising how open a lot of the buildings in DC are.
> and threatened the lives of our lawmakers
This part I don't get how more people didn't get shot. I mean I guess it lowered fatalities but when you get into a tug of war with the cops as the rope I don't get why shooting doesn't start.
"There's nothing special about breaking down the doors of the bank while it's closed in order to chase the staff and rummage through all of the drawers, people
enter banks all the time."
The parent poster was obviously concerned with how and why they entered the building.
The USA is hardly unique in that regard. Other countries have had similar policy issues with major court decisions causing sweeping policy changes. And how could it be otherwise? When litigants ask the court for a decision, the court has to give an interpretation. Judges can't punt the issue to anyone else, they have to come down on one side or the other.
When a policy issue like abortion ends up in front of the appellate courts it's precisely because the laws are unclear. The legislators did a bad job and wrote vague laws. So the outcome of such cases will always be kind of a toss-up, especially for the most complex cases that make it to the Supreme Court level. Instead of complaining about justices legislating from the bench, voters should insist that Congress write better laws. I understand that sudden changes to established policy can be tremendously disruptive but the anger should be directed at the root cause.
A great many countries use "civil law" where court decisions don't create a binding precedent.
Some other "common law" countries - like Canada and the UK - have a parliamentary system with first-past-the-post elections. So they don't get any nonsense like "government shut-downs" because of "deadlock" - and if the legislature wants to change the laws, nothing stops them.
Those differences have only minor impacts on this issue. Civil law courts still have to make decisions about ambiguous or conflicting laws. They follow a different process but the fundamental problem remains. And parliamentary systems do nothing to ensure that laws are clear.
> Those differences have only minor impacts on this issue.
Are you sure?
To me it seems fairly obvious that critical legal precedents like Roe vs Wade would not occur in a system that did not have the concept of binding legal precedent ?
You understand that with respect to abortion, the effect of Dobbs was precisely what you seem to be asking for? That is, Dobbs handed the issue back to legislators.
Maybe - but Dobbs is 50 years too late for anyone to say "American judges aren't political"
Some US states even elect judges and sheriffs, just like they elect politicians - complete with TV ads and tens of millions of dollars being spent by shady super-PACs.
All US states except Rhode Island and Hawai'i elect county sheriffs. There's nothing wrong with this, it is inherently a political office. Sheriffs are part of the executive branch and have no real judicial role.
Many of the most contentious things are about law in the books, it just happens to be law which was too generic/vague that is very difficult to change.
In particular, I'm thinking of the 14th amendment, and everything that came from that like the incorporation doctrine.
In most other countries, if there's a difficult political decision to be made, it's made through the political process.
Society wants abortion to be legal/illegal? Political parties make it part of their election platform, and if elected they change the law. Judges then interpret the law as written, and any bugs are ironed out by the politicians amending the law.
But in America, they face this difficult political decision - and it gets punted to a bunch of elderly judges? Who are appointed for life? Then for half a century the legality of abortion is basically decided at random, depending on which party is in power when these septuagenarians die?