Judges can't answer citizen questions?

I'm glad to see the smart ones in the black robes are so separated from the citizen. It's evident in this story about the Sotomayor hearing that the court has become an abstract and theoretical body which exists in a dimension not to be visited by the common man.

See quote:

Coburn asked whether technological improvements that help premature babies
survive might "have any bearing on how we look at Roe v.
Wade," the 1973 court ruling that established abortion rights.
"I can't
answer that in the abstract," Sotomayor said. "The question as it would it come
before me wouldn't be in the way that you form it as a citizen, it would come to
me as a judge."

Firstly, I didn't know that lack of technology had anything to do with Roe v. Wade; I thought it was all about privacy and choice. But what is with Sotomayor and her many replies of, "I can't answer in the abstract"? I get it that a case would have to be brought before her, which might trigger her wise latina mind to ask herself the question posed by Coburn, but then again, I don't think she has a richness of technology experience like the rich experiences she may have of knowing women who have had abortions, so that question may not come up.

You see, citizens form questions everyday, but those citizens must have the knowledge to translate a question into the correct abstract and concrete legal terminology, so that the ever intelligent court can understand the question and recall settled law and if not settled law, international law to come to a conclusion which allows Ms. Sotomayor and her peers to opine. Get it?