Nancy and Sarah talk about how abortion got overturned, the modern push to control our biological destinies, and why we refuse to give in to the ideological comfort food of hatred and despair
Jun 27, 2022·edited Jun 27, 2022Liked by Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
I adore you two! Something Sarah said really stood out. She’s glad she lives in Texas and is glad she’s around people who don’t think like her. I consider myself on the Left but I listen to smart, conservative podcasts (the dispatch crew, National review, even Ben Shapiro 😱) and what I find with my crowd is a complete ignorance about the “other side’s” arguments. I can’t tell you how many people have been railing against the White Male Patriarchy™️ and what they don’t realize are all the pro-life women who are absolutely earnest in their beliefs. They’re not brainwashed, they’re not propping up White Supremacy, they have very honest feelings about protecting unborn life. And while I don’t want them reversing Roe, I can see their point of view and actually *gasp* appreciate it.
I was reading David French’s latest French Press (honestly, god bless the David French’s of the world) and I was moved (almost) to donate to a pregnancy center (I need to do more research). If abortion is going to be banned or severely restricted in some states why wouldn’t you want places where women can go for support? https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/roe-is-reversed-and-the-right-isnt
I wish we could all have an honest, respectful conversation with each other but it’s not going to happen if all the Left sees are avatars for the WMP™️.
Re: paywall, Sarah’s piece about Depp-Heard is all anybody should need to become a paying member. It’s an honor to invest in this type of journalism.
Anyways, love you guys!!! Thank you as always for the calm analysis.
I had so many thoughts about motherhood and the choice not to be a mother during this fascinating discussion. Your mention of RBG being a young mother while she was in law school, and the question of why universities and our culture doesn't embrace that more these days made me think about how different motherhood looks now than it did when, say, RBG or my own mother was young - the pressure on today's mothers to do it all-- all the activities and arts and crafts and driving to sports and all the household management all without letting your kids out of your sight for a single second (because God forbid you're not constantly engaged with them in some edifying way)-- pretty much precludes women with young children from doing much else. Was it different for, say, RBG, who maybe wasn't expected to frost three dozen Minions cupcakes for her kid's class party? What has caused the shift in the expectations on mothers? I think it began in the 80s, somewhere around second-wave feminism's insistence that women can "have it all", and has been exacerbated by social media and hustle culture, but I don't know, exactly. It's an intriguing question to me.
Also, a movie recommendation - The Lost Daughter (on Netflix), directed by Maggie Gyllehnaal and starring Olivia Colman, a thought-provoking (and disturbing) look at the burdens and joys of motherhood.
Another great conversation, even more thought-provoking and challenging than most of your episodes. I live in a Republican-leaning rural state. Many of my neighbors are lovely people who I'd never share my political opinions with in a million years. But some of them... well, they suck, frankly. I think back to the guys that came heavily armed to the candlelight vigil for George Floyd that my high school daughter went to, or the people that I walked by every day who did everything short of physically attacking state legislators who had the audacity to vote to receive federal funding for promoting Covid vaccines, or the guy who called a coworker words I won't use here because she told him to wear a mask in our building. I don't want to sound whiny--I'm a straight white male, I haven't had to deal with shit, really. I guess my point is, yes there are plenty of talking heads or activists on the Left that demonize the Right without any understanding of the people they're talking about. But also? Some of that shit is real.
And yet...
Everything you say about needing to know your neighbors, and not demonize people you disagree with is undeniably true. We're not going to get anywhere if we deny the humanity of people whose beliefs seem alien to us. You are right about all of that. I just find it really fucking difficult. But now I feel called out a little, and justifiably, so I need to try and do better on this front.
I swear I don't make a habit of going on discussion boards and dumping all my feelings--not until I started listening to Smoke 'Em, anyway. Wow, you two have REALLY gotten into my head! ( :
You guys are so open-hearted and wonderful. Thanks for this conversation. I'm starting to shed my "pro-life" label for something more descriptive: I think there should be limited limits on abortion, something like a 15 week cutoff* with important exceptions for maternal emergencies and victims of rape and incest. My husband described this plan as "pro-life," but I think Nancy would possibly support something similar with a "pro-choice" label. Perhaps the life/choice verbiage is part of the problem?
*see VEEP episode where Selina Meyer can't "pick a number":
Anyway, I'm printing out a bunch of the articles and finishing the second half of the pod. Love love love this coverage. Y'all are really scratching an itch that the Fifth guys can't. (Not that they're not trying, but their discomfort is palpable).
Jul 11, 2022·edited Jul 11, 2022Liked by Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
Y'all are so right about knowing your neighbors! I have lived in a red county outside of Austin for the past 20 years, surrounded by the most lovely Republicans that I never knew could exist before I got here. We don't agree about much politically, but we love each other, we listen to each other, and we help each other out. Some of my favorite nights are in the summer when we all gather to swim in my pool. I wouldn't trade them for anyone.
Thank-you ladies for your prospective. I recently watched a Vice News report and both sides angered me. The reporter and the clinic interview subject kept using the term pregnant person why not just way woman.
The reporter also interviewed a spokesperson from Alliance Defending Freedom, this organization provided legal assistance with Dobbs. If you read the website it all appears very rationale concerning free speech and religious freedom. If you dig a bit they appear to be probably working on over turning gay marriage.
This would be an interesting group to investigate as I believe their tactics are aimed at provoking liberals and unfortunately their tactics will probably work.
Sarah -- off topic, but -- your website is not working. This is the one linked on the Smoke 'Em about page. It goes to a link at aplus.net about "suspended due to incomplete whois verification". I'm pretty sure it was working fine a few weeks ago. Just FYI. (Feel free to delete this comment once you get this fixed; I didn't see any better way to let you know.)
Hey Em - Nancy here. I, interestingly, read your comment just after I had dinner with a friend in from SF. She is apoplectically enraged about the overturning of Roe, beside herself that anyone, other than herself, would exert autonomy over her body. She further has a cousin who is a doctor in a St. Louis family practice clinic that performs abortions. Her cousin said the overturning of Roe is going to result in many more late term abortions, with people afraid and confused as services become harder to access. These are the unintended consequences of overturning the law, ones that I cannot imagine anyone being happy about. (I really am getting to your points!) I countered to my friend, what about the idea of push-push-pushing birth control? She said her cousin's patients in the main are super uneducated, they are not going to take precautions and never will, leaving abortion as the only option for an unintended pregnancy. It would be my hope that this can be changed, to be able to get birth control as easy to buy as a pack of gum.
As for your comments: I agree, and I don't. Most people reading that issue of the magazine are not at that moment experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, but are, if the magazine is properly pegging its readership, interested in knowing how to end a pregnancy, for themselves or a friend or a relative or just to feel in the know and/or apprised of the culture. (My first gig as a journalist was as a nightlife columnist in LA, and I quickly learned, people don't necessarily want to go, they just want to know.) This makes sense; forewarned is forearmed. This is why I think it would have been a smart idea to include something about birth control. If my friend's cousin is right (and, granted, her patients are likely not New York Magazine readers), there are people who need hand-holding; obviously that's so even for blue city chatterati, if NY Mag is publishing an exhaustive list of options and locations. I am of the additional mind that people can be saved hardship and money if they avoid the pregnancy.
Go ahead and dump! Trust me; I know it can be frustrating. Covering antifa and the more radical activists in Portland, with them getting in face and stealing my phone and following me around and putting my picture online, I had to be... patience, grasshopper; don't be one of those people who lose your nut, report calmly. There are definitely problematic people on every one of the googolplex sides of life. And so very many good ones!
Just gotta say, a period tracker is a wonderful thing for women with irregular periods. I wish I had had something like it in high school. It also helped a ton with figuring out ovulation - put in a ton of temperature data, and it figures out the day.
Lovely discussion, as always. I wish the sides of the abortion debate weren’t staked by the loudest, least nuanced voices in the room, but i don’t know if there’s any way to change it. Just keep adding nuance and hope people will take note, I suppose.
This is easily the most reasoned and calming conversation I've heard about the Dobbs decision; I would like there to be many more but as y'all have discussed, many people would much rather be yelling at each other and rallying the troops. So much food for thought in this episode. Some random thoughts --
- I would like to hear more of the history of how abortions were handled through history, as you mentioned near the beginning - this was in Damon Root's piece. This is in line with Sarah's research on "how we got to this point". There is always history and it's often relevant
- I too would like to put a stop to the shaming of various states. States are (mostly) BIG, with lots of folks with lots of views.
- I would like to put in a plug for Twitter, with all its faults; but that's mostly due to how I use it. I treat it as "read-only", or as a lurker, as we used to say. I "heart" the tweets I like or find interesting, but almost never reply. But I gain a lot of information by following people who are interesting or informative, mostly in the fields I want to follow -- programming, astronomy & space, geology, some travel, some culture, and limited politics. (and of course @iowahawkblog for his weekend "Daves Car ID Service", who wouldn't love that!)
- Nancy, you tweeted a pic on the weekend of where you were about to podcast from -- many very interesting photos and stuff in the background! Would love to hear about that, whatever you would care to share!
- Another thought-provoking and satisfying morning walk (4.79 miles again, I guess I have a consistent pace) & conversation; thank you!
If autonomy is our goal for women, then I think it's reasonable to remind ourselves of the things a woman can do for herself regardless of which state laws apply to her. There's going to be a lot of flux in the laws for the foreseeable future. A culture of autonomy and awareness of one's body is never amiss. It's not abortion abolitionism.
FWIW, I prefer the dental hygienist to flossing!!! ;)
I’m a paid subscriber. I like listening; I share a lot of your views.
That said, I grew increasingly irritated while listening to this episode by the assumptions that seem to have tacitly steered many of Nancy’s comments on abortion and how we talk about it.
These assumptions emerged most clearly for me in the context of her critique of a recent article (post repeal) outlining the many ways a woman might terminate her pregnancy. Nancy felt the article should have included information about various forms of birth control as well.
Mmkay. To me, this seems akin to complaining that an article about bariatric surgery and prescription-only weight loss drugs fails to include information about diets for thin people who don’t want to become morbidly obese.
I doubt Nancy would draw that analogy, though, since she probably understands morbid obesity as a state to which very, very few people aspire. Further, she also probably understands that NOBODY considers bariatric surgery an easier option than staying thin.
(I am aware that the analogy isn’t perfect.
I expect it to be especially difficult to square for parents.)
Final thought: I would love to listen to an intelligent discussion of the repeal that does not gesture at this mythical woman who needs assistance and handholding in learning about birth control but finds it easy to locate an abortion provider, to schedule an appointment (or two, depending on the state or the procedure), and to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for it. Odd that these skills would not transfer!
I bet this woman also LOVES dental cleanings because it lets her skip the daily flossing routine...
I know I'm a year late to this discussion, but I get incredibly annoyed when people talk about Roe having a shaky legal justification. That's certainly an opinion that law scholars and others can (and do) have, but I hardly see how it ever matters. The Supreme Court has been empowered (through the accidents of history, by the way) to be the sole arbiter of what counts as a shaky or not legal justification. If, say, Roberts and Kavanaugh both thought "Gee, I think Roe was decided on the wrong legal theory, but I think this other one is stronger", they could absolutely have written an opinion saying "We've set aside Roe, but the new controlling legal doctrine will be rooted in this other section of the Constitution." They could absolutely have done that if they chose to, and Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer would have immediately said "OK, we accept this new legal doctrine." There has been no shortage of scholarly articles describing how to root an abortion protection in other parts of the constitution, so they wouldn't have even had to do much work to get there. So the fact that something does or does not have "shaky legal justification" according to law scholars means very, very little. All that matters is how the judges collectively choose to act. In this case, six justices decided they wanted to throw out Roe/Casey. And because they wanted to, that's what they did, and their reasoning matters literally not at all. Had they just thought that abortion was a constitutional right but that it was legally shaky, they could have strengthened the legal reasoning quite easily, but they chose not to do that. They wanted to throw out Roe, and so they did (and indeed, they had been carefully selected because they would do so). Every legal doctrine is only ever as strong or as shaky as the current Supreme Court decides to let be strong or shaky. In practice, precedent matters to Supremes because they (well, most of them) want to be seen as respectable jurists, and so they don't upend precedent constantly or without merit, but there is literally nothing stopping them from making any conceivable choice that they want to. "Shaky" is just not a category that ever matters for why the Supreme Court makes any decision. You can argue the extent to which judges make good judicial decisions and give due deference to existing precedent, but you can't argue that they literally can make any legal decision on any case they want to. That's how the system has been set up. (And that's why the system as it exists now is just truly absurd.)
Or to paraphrase Hamlet: There is no judicial opinion shaky or sound but five justices' thinking makes it so.
I adore you two! Something Sarah said really stood out. She’s glad she lives in Texas and is glad she’s around people who don’t think like her. I consider myself on the Left but I listen to smart, conservative podcasts (the dispatch crew, National review, even Ben Shapiro 😱) and what I find with my crowd is a complete ignorance about the “other side’s” arguments. I can’t tell you how many people have been railing against the White Male Patriarchy™️ and what they don’t realize are all the pro-life women who are absolutely earnest in their beliefs. They’re not brainwashed, they’re not propping up White Supremacy, they have very honest feelings about protecting unborn life. And while I don’t want them reversing Roe, I can see their point of view and actually *gasp* appreciate it.
I was reading David French’s latest French Press (honestly, god bless the David French’s of the world) and I was moved (almost) to donate to a pregnancy center (I need to do more research). If abortion is going to be banned or severely restricted in some states why wouldn’t you want places where women can go for support? https://frenchpress.thedispatch.com/p/roe-is-reversed-and-the-right-isnt
I wish we could all have an honest, respectful conversation with each other but it’s not going to happen if all the Left sees are avatars for the WMP™️.
Re: paywall, Sarah’s piece about Depp-Heard is all anybody should need to become a paying member. It’s an honor to invest in this type of journalism.
Anyways, love you guys!!! Thank you as always for the calm analysis.
I had so many thoughts about motherhood and the choice not to be a mother during this fascinating discussion. Your mention of RBG being a young mother while she was in law school, and the question of why universities and our culture doesn't embrace that more these days made me think about how different motherhood looks now than it did when, say, RBG or my own mother was young - the pressure on today's mothers to do it all-- all the activities and arts and crafts and driving to sports and all the household management all without letting your kids out of your sight for a single second (because God forbid you're not constantly engaged with them in some edifying way)-- pretty much precludes women with young children from doing much else. Was it different for, say, RBG, who maybe wasn't expected to frost three dozen Minions cupcakes for her kid's class party? What has caused the shift in the expectations on mothers? I think it began in the 80s, somewhere around second-wave feminism's insistence that women can "have it all", and has been exacerbated by social media and hustle culture, but I don't know, exactly. It's an intriguing question to me.
Also, a movie recommendation - The Lost Daughter (on Netflix), directed by Maggie Gyllehnaal and starring Olivia Colman, a thought-provoking (and disturbing) look at the burdens and joys of motherhood.
Another great conversation, even more thought-provoking and challenging than most of your episodes. I live in a Republican-leaning rural state. Many of my neighbors are lovely people who I'd never share my political opinions with in a million years. But some of them... well, they suck, frankly. I think back to the guys that came heavily armed to the candlelight vigil for George Floyd that my high school daughter went to, or the people that I walked by every day who did everything short of physically attacking state legislators who had the audacity to vote to receive federal funding for promoting Covid vaccines, or the guy who called a coworker words I won't use here because she told him to wear a mask in our building. I don't want to sound whiny--I'm a straight white male, I haven't had to deal with shit, really. I guess my point is, yes there are plenty of talking heads or activists on the Left that demonize the Right without any understanding of the people they're talking about. But also? Some of that shit is real.
And yet...
Everything you say about needing to know your neighbors, and not demonize people you disagree with is undeniably true. We're not going to get anywhere if we deny the humanity of people whose beliefs seem alien to us. You are right about all of that. I just find it really fucking difficult. But now I feel called out a little, and justifiably, so I need to try and do better on this front.
I swear I don't make a habit of going on discussion boards and dumping all my feelings--not until I started listening to Smoke 'Em, anyway. Wow, you two have REALLY gotten into my head! ( :
You guys are so open-hearted and wonderful. Thanks for this conversation. I'm starting to shed my "pro-life" label for something more descriptive: I think there should be limited limits on abortion, something like a 15 week cutoff* with important exceptions for maternal emergencies and victims of rape and incest. My husband described this plan as "pro-life," but I think Nancy would possibly support something similar with a "pro-choice" label. Perhaps the life/choice verbiage is part of the problem?
*see VEEP episode where Selina Meyer can't "pick a number":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFJZxirddv4
Anyway, I'm printing out a bunch of the articles and finishing the second half of the pod. Love love love this coverage. Y'all are really scratching an itch that the Fifth guys can't. (Not that they're not trying, but their discomfort is palpable).
Y'all are so right about knowing your neighbors! I have lived in a red county outside of Austin for the past 20 years, surrounded by the most lovely Republicans that I never knew could exist before I got here. We don't agree about much politically, but we love each other, we listen to each other, and we help each other out. Some of my favorite nights are in the summer when we all gather to swim in my pool. I wouldn't trade them for anyone.
Thank-you ladies for your prospective. I recently watched a Vice News report and both sides angered me. The reporter and the clinic interview subject kept using the term pregnant person why not just way woman.
The reporter also interviewed a spokesperson from Alliance Defending Freedom, this organization provided legal assistance with Dobbs. If you read the website it all appears very rationale concerning free speech and religious freedom. If you dig a bit they appear to be probably working on over turning gay marriage.
This would be an interesting group to investigate as I believe their tactics are aimed at provoking liberals and unfortunately their tactics will probably work.
Sarah -- off topic, but -- your website is not working. This is the one linked on the Smoke 'Em about page. It goes to a link at aplus.net about "suspended due to incomplete whois verification". I'm pretty sure it was working fine a few weeks ago. Just FYI. (Feel free to delete this comment once you get this fixed; I didn't see any better way to let you know.)
❤️❤️
Hey Em - Nancy here. I, interestingly, read your comment just after I had dinner with a friend in from SF. She is apoplectically enraged about the overturning of Roe, beside herself that anyone, other than herself, would exert autonomy over her body. She further has a cousin who is a doctor in a St. Louis family practice clinic that performs abortions. Her cousin said the overturning of Roe is going to result in many more late term abortions, with people afraid and confused as services become harder to access. These are the unintended consequences of overturning the law, ones that I cannot imagine anyone being happy about. (I really am getting to your points!) I countered to my friend, what about the idea of push-push-pushing birth control? She said her cousin's patients in the main are super uneducated, they are not going to take precautions and never will, leaving abortion as the only option for an unintended pregnancy. It would be my hope that this can be changed, to be able to get birth control as easy to buy as a pack of gum.
As for your comments: I agree, and I don't. Most people reading that issue of the magazine are not at that moment experiencing an unwanted pregnancy, but are, if the magazine is properly pegging its readership, interested in knowing how to end a pregnancy, for themselves or a friend or a relative or just to feel in the know and/or apprised of the culture. (My first gig as a journalist was as a nightlife columnist in LA, and I quickly learned, people don't necessarily want to go, they just want to know.) This makes sense; forewarned is forearmed. This is why I think it would have been a smart idea to include something about birth control. If my friend's cousin is right (and, granted, her patients are likely not New York Magazine readers), there are people who need hand-holding; obviously that's so even for blue city chatterati, if NY Mag is publishing an exhaustive list of options and locations. I am of the additional mind that people can be saved hardship and money if they avoid the pregnancy.
Thots?
Go ahead and dump! Trust me; I know it can be frustrating. Covering antifa and the more radical activists in Portland, with them getting in face and stealing my phone and following me around and putting my picture online, I had to be... patience, grasshopper; don't be one of those people who lose your nut, report calmly. There are definitely problematic people on every one of the googolplex sides of life. And so very many good ones!
Just gotta say, a period tracker is a wonderful thing for women with irregular periods. I wish I had had something like it in high school. It also helped a ton with figuring out ovulation - put in a ton of temperature data, and it figures out the day.
Lovely discussion, as always. I wish the sides of the abortion debate weren’t staked by the loudest, least nuanced voices in the room, but i don’t know if there’s any way to change it. Just keep adding nuance and hope people will take note, I suppose.
I am so with you on David French. And on Sarah's Depp-Heard story! xx
This is easily the most reasoned and calming conversation I've heard about the Dobbs decision; I would like there to be many more but as y'all have discussed, many people would much rather be yelling at each other and rallying the troops. So much food for thought in this episode. Some random thoughts --
- I would like to hear more of the history of how abortions were handled through history, as you mentioned near the beginning - this was in Damon Root's piece. This is in line with Sarah's research on "how we got to this point". There is always history and it's often relevant
- I too would like to put a stop to the shaming of various states. States are (mostly) BIG, with lots of folks with lots of views.
- I would like to put in a plug for Twitter, with all its faults; but that's mostly due to how I use it. I treat it as "read-only", or as a lurker, as we used to say. I "heart" the tweets I like or find interesting, but almost never reply. But I gain a lot of information by following people who are interesting or informative, mostly in the fields I want to follow -- programming, astronomy & space, geology, some travel, some culture, and limited politics. (and of course @iowahawkblog for his weekend "Daves Car ID Service", who wouldn't love that!)
- Nancy, you tweeted a pic on the weekend of where you were about to podcast from -- many very interesting photos and stuff in the background! Would love to hear about that, whatever you would care to share!
- Another thought-provoking and satisfying morning walk (4.79 miles again, I guess I have a consistent pace) & conversation; thank you!
If autonomy is our goal for women, then I think it's reasonable to remind ourselves of the things a woman can do for herself regardless of which state laws apply to her. There's going to be a lot of flux in the laws for the foreseeable future. A culture of autonomy and awareness of one's body is never amiss. It's not abortion abolitionism.
FWIW, I prefer the dental hygienist to flossing!!! ;)
I’m a paid subscriber. I like listening; I share a lot of your views.
That said, I grew increasingly irritated while listening to this episode by the assumptions that seem to have tacitly steered many of Nancy’s comments on abortion and how we talk about it.
These assumptions emerged most clearly for me in the context of her critique of a recent article (post repeal) outlining the many ways a woman might terminate her pregnancy. Nancy felt the article should have included information about various forms of birth control as well.
Mmkay. To me, this seems akin to complaining that an article about bariatric surgery and prescription-only weight loss drugs fails to include information about diets for thin people who don’t want to become morbidly obese.
I doubt Nancy would draw that analogy, though, since she probably understands morbid obesity as a state to which very, very few people aspire. Further, she also probably understands that NOBODY considers bariatric surgery an easier option than staying thin.
(I am aware that the analogy isn’t perfect.
I expect it to be especially difficult to square for parents.)
Final thought: I would love to listen to an intelligent discussion of the repeal that does not gesture at this mythical woman who needs assistance and handholding in learning about birth control but finds it easy to locate an abortion provider, to schedule an appointment (or two, depending on the state or the procedure), and to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for it. Odd that these skills would not transfer!
I bet this woman also LOVES dental cleanings because it lets her skip the daily flossing routine...
I know I'm a year late to this discussion, but I get incredibly annoyed when people talk about Roe having a shaky legal justification. That's certainly an opinion that law scholars and others can (and do) have, but I hardly see how it ever matters. The Supreme Court has been empowered (through the accidents of history, by the way) to be the sole arbiter of what counts as a shaky or not legal justification. If, say, Roberts and Kavanaugh both thought "Gee, I think Roe was decided on the wrong legal theory, but I think this other one is stronger", they could absolutely have written an opinion saying "We've set aside Roe, but the new controlling legal doctrine will be rooted in this other section of the Constitution." They could absolutely have done that if they chose to, and Sotomayor, Kagan, and Breyer would have immediately said "OK, we accept this new legal doctrine." There has been no shortage of scholarly articles describing how to root an abortion protection in other parts of the constitution, so they wouldn't have even had to do much work to get there. So the fact that something does or does not have "shaky legal justification" according to law scholars means very, very little. All that matters is how the judges collectively choose to act. In this case, six justices decided they wanted to throw out Roe/Casey. And because they wanted to, that's what they did, and their reasoning matters literally not at all. Had they just thought that abortion was a constitutional right but that it was legally shaky, they could have strengthened the legal reasoning quite easily, but they chose not to do that. They wanted to throw out Roe, and so they did (and indeed, they had been carefully selected because they would do so). Every legal doctrine is only ever as strong or as shaky as the current Supreme Court decides to let be strong or shaky. In practice, precedent matters to Supremes because they (well, most of them) want to be seen as respectable jurists, and so they don't upend precedent constantly or without merit, but there is literally nothing stopping them from making any conceivable choice that they want to. "Shaky" is just not a category that ever matters for why the Supreme Court makes any decision. You can argue the extent to which judges make good judicial decisions and give due deference to existing precedent, but you can't argue that they literally can make any legal decision on any case they want to. That's how the system has been set up. (And that's why the system as it exists now is just truly absurd.)
Or to paraphrase Hamlet: There is no judicial opinion shaky or sound but five justices' thinking makes it so.