When Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 1986, the vote was 98-0. But now, a president's pick for the High Court is subject to drawn-out partisan infighting during the confirmation process.

Senators will grill the judicial appointee with questions, attempting to discern how they might decide cases involving social issues such as abortion or gay rights. But Scalia says this environment for selecting and appointing justices to the Supreme Court is related to its view, which has evolved over time, that the Constitution is not a "static" document--to be interpreted based on the intent and words of the framers--but a "living" document, the interpretation of which can change as society does.

Speaking to a crowd of 1,700 people Monday at Utah State University, Scalia said, "One shudders to think of what sort of political turmoil will greet the next nomination to the Supreme Court."

According to Scalia, until the latter half of the 20th century, appointees to the Supreme Court were generally thought of as "good lawyers who could read a text" or "fairminded people," whereas now the Court has taken to making more "value-laden judgments."
 
"My court does it all the time," Scalia said, noting Roe v. Wade is a prime example. He added, "We have become addicted to abstract moralizing."
 
Scalia said that in Roe, "Where my court said that in order to decide whether a state must allow termination of a fetus' life at the wish of a mother, it was unncessary to decide when human life begins. ... Of course that question is central to intelligent discussion of the issue, but judges obviously know no more about it than the rest of us."
 
He contends that nine unelected justices should not be making value judgments, as they are no more qualified to decide what is "right" and "wrong" than the rest of us.
 
"I am questioning the propriety, indeed the sanity, of having a value-laden decision ... made for the entire society," Scalia said. "Even if there were scientifically right answers, there would be no reason to believe that law-trained professionals can discern them more readily than say medical doctors or engineers or ethicists or even the fabled Joe Sixpack."
 
He continued, "Nothing I learned in my law courses at Harvard Law School, nothing in the experience I acquired in practicing law, qualifies me to decide whether there ought to be ... a fundamental right to abortion or to assisted suicide."
 
Instead, Scalia believes that the Constitution should be interpreted as it was written.
 
"Under a regime of static law, it was not difficult to decide whether under the American Constitution, there was a right to abortion or to homosexual conduct or to assisted suicide," he said. "When the Constitution was adopted, all those acts were criminal throughout the United States and remained so for several centuries."
 
Any changes should come about through "the people" through the Constitutional amendment process and not by judges favoring one of the often competing moral views.
 
But just because the Supreme Court's appointment process has become politicized, that does not mean that the justices play politics from the bench, according to Scalia.
 
"Really, who cares whether the current president's Republican or Democrat," he said. "It's issues. It's the meaning of the Constitution that divides the people once they're on the court--not political partisanship. I don't know of any case that's come before us in which I suspect any of my colleagues having even a smidgeon of political determination. That's not the issue."