Imagine if Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court case legalizing abortion throughout the United States, was repealed. Think about the consequences that would go along with reversing Obergefell v. Hodges, the Court case that legalized same-sex marriage across the nation. These two cases, along with so many others that provide such critical rights to United States citizens, could be taken away if Supreme Court justices are given term limits. Fundamental rights could be taken away with term limits because term limits could have the primary effect of creating a Supreme Court composed entirely of republicans. Term limits are a bad idea because judicial rulings would be based more on political ideology than on constitutionality, there is no unanimous theory as to how the transition would work, and the old age decline argument is flawed.
One of the main reasons why term limits should not be put in place is because it would increase the likelihood that justices would make decisions based on their own political ideology and less on constitutionality. For example, if the Supreme Court were debating the constitutionality of a law that would repeal Roe v. Wade, a Republican term-limited justice may feel pressured to rule in favor of this stance simply because a majority of the justice’s political …show more content…
The judicial branch is meant to have lifetime tenures in order to preserve its independence from the legislative and executive branches of government. Putting term limits in place would reduce the separation between the judiciary branch with the legislative and executive branches of government and would result in the primary effect of the judiciary branch becoming more political because more appointments would need to be made at more regular intervals. It is critical that the system in which justices serve for life be preserved and that a confusing transition to a system of term limits not be allowed to