But in 1973 abortion had become a hot cause, so the Court's majority decided to give it the force of constitutional law. It can reverse the tradition of centuries at will. No matter how arbitrary its rulings, the rest of us can only obey. It's a weird parody of the rule of law. But the Court's whim becomes virtual law.
Lower courts follow it, and the states fall into line.
It exercises a sort of line-item veto over the Constitution. Thus some parts of the Living Document become, quite arbitrarily, dead letters. If the Constitution means whatever the Supreme Court says it means, then yes, we still live under the Constitution, because we certainly live under the authority of the Supreme Court. Too many Americans depend on government money under programs the Constitution doesn't authorize, and money talks with an eloquence Shakespeare could only envy. Ignorant people don't understand The Federalist Papers, but they understand government checks with their names on them.