It was these leanings, and not the Constitution, that prompted the rendering of the 1905 Lo chner v. New York decision. This ruling voided legislation that sought to protect bakers from employer exploitation by placing a ceiling on daily and weekly working hours. The Court could find no constitutional provision expressly forbidding this law. In its place, it dogmatically asserted an employer's right to make a contract without intrusion. Today, the pendulum has swung the other way.
Elite opinion is more liberal, especially on abortion.
Roe v. Wade reflects this rather completely. As with Lochner, nothing in the Constitution prohibited the statute in question. In both cases, majority rule was thwarted and judicial despotism advanced through the Trojan horse of newly concocted freedoms demanded by elite sensibilities. Because of Lochner, liberals should be wary of Roe. If one set of Supreme Court justices can arbitrarily strike down conservative laws, another set can do likewise to liberal laws.