# If elected, would "W" REALLY outlaw abortion? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 30, 2000, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923 "2000-10-30T15:03:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923/41 "2000-10-31T20:33:25Z")
Well, that’s it then. I’ll ring up Queen Elizabeth and let her know we want to rejoin the empire. ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 8:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923/42 "2000-10-31T20:52:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by jmullaney \* > \*\*Roe v. Wade isn’t based on the 9th but the 14th, right? \*\* Sort of. Here is the opinion in [Roe v. Wade](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=410&invol=113), so you can read it and decide for yourself. The Court recognizes a “right of privacy,” which encompasses a woman’s right to make decisions about abortion. The origin of the “right of privacy” is a little fuzzy. The lower court had understood the right to privacy to be one of the rights “reserved to the people” under the 9th Amendment. The Supreme Court seemed to rely more upon the due process clause of the [14th Amendment](http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data/constitution/amendment14/). Either way, the Supreme Court held: > [@](#): > > This right of privacy, whether it be founded in the Fourteenth Amendment’s concept of personal liberty and restrictions upon state action, as we feel it is, or, as the District Court determined, in the Ninth Amendment’s reservation of rights to the people, is broad enough to encompass a woman’s decision whether or not to terminate her pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923/43 "2000-11-01T15:05:51Z")
The ninth amendment was put in so that the people reading the bill of rights and saying “Wait we only have 8 rights, I am not voting for this” would have an out to ratify the constitution. Making the ninth amendment a catch all for every right that can be thought up makes no sense. How about a right for free beer and pizza for football fans, how about a right torun red lights, how about a right to public nudity. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923/44 "2000-11-01T16:40:10Z")
Wow, that actually didn’t answer any of the questions I asked! It just seems funny to me that people persist in insisting upon a strict constructionist reading of the Constitution when _the Framers themselves_ inserted an amendment telling us not to do so! I now await your responses to the questions I posed in my previous post. ---
**Author:** ![puddleglum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puddleglum/32/137_2.png) [@puddleglum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puddleglum)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2000, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923/45 "2000-11-01T17:02:19Z")
Your questions were off topic so I ignored them. However since you asked again. The 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments are part of the constitution they update the constitution as was specifically provided for in the constitution. I do not try to understand what the framers thought, merely try to interpret what they wrote. If people want to add an abortion amendment they are free to do so, then it will be in the constitution. Until then it is not. Issues that are not in the constitution should be resolved democratically through the legislature. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-elected-would-w-really-outlaw-abortion/38923.md?page=2)