Nope, not there. But that condom you’ve been looking for, that’s in there.
The majority opinion did not anywhere reject the District Court’s finding (Ninth Amendment). It added its own finding (Fourteenth Amendment) to the District Court’s. Note the crucial use of the word “whether”.
Nonsense, my good lad (or lassie). The Supreme Court says it’s in the 14th Amendment, but it’s just as good as if it were in the 9th. Implicit in that holding is that it’s not in the 9th.
Also, trial courts find facts. Appellate courts *hold matters of law.
Well, that’s your reading, and I have my own reading. So. . . .
Frankly, Bricker, the ends justify the means. If it weren’t for judicial intervention, I dare say the South would still be segregated. If it takes some inventive legal finangling to do the right thing, then so be it. Sometimes the majority needs a boot in the ass to get them on the right track.
Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.
Fortunately for you, I daresay that abstinence is also constitutionally protected.
An aside, the ‘right to choose an abortion’ has to include by default the ‘right to abort’, so lets not mince words here and bold the word ‘choose’.
Back to my OP
I chose abortion because of the passion, and that passion of wanting it in the Constitution is cause distractions and the ability to ignore the Constitution when it suits people. Again I am not saying that the right to abort should be in the constitution (that’s another issue), I’m saying it’s not, and judicial activism has put it in, along with the above mentioned ‘right to privacy’ which is not in there either.
The due process argument (14th) was a bit closer, and I will have to ponder that one some more (denial of life, liberty…). BTW the 14th is also the amendment which would have prevented J. Kerry from taking the office if he were elected president (aid and comfort to the enemy), would this have been ignored too?
I really feel that the abortion issue is a distraction from the eroding of our constitutional rights, basically a non-(Constitutional)issue, while our other rights are take away. This can go into other levels, like a crucifix in a jar of urine is protected under free speech, while campaign finance reform takes away the very right the 1st was made to protect (political speech). The very words “Congress shall make No law” are there, and Congress themselves go an pass CFR. Many believe the “separation of Church and State” are actually in the Constitution, again another distraction from what it really says. And the 2nd, well that one was the 1st to go.
I’m not saying the Constitution is perfect, I’m saying it looks we are ignoring it went it suits us, and making things up when that suits us. I think this is dangerous, no matter how passionate an issue you just can’t pretend it’s there. There is a process to change it.
This is, in my view, a brutally honest commentary on the use of substantive due process in the modern era.
Obviously, I disagree. If “the consent of the governed” means anything, then it should mean we make substantial interventions in the law based on the legislature, not the courts. But there’s very little we can say on this that hasn’t been said before. We agree to disagree on how wise a policy this is.
kanicbird: An aside, the ‘right to choose an abortion’ has to include by default the ‘right to abort’, so lets not mince words here and bold the word ‘choose’.
I bolded “choose” in my previous post not to “mince words”, but to emphasize the very important point that abortion rights change during the course of pregnancy. In the later stages of pregnancy, a woman may not choose to have an abortion just for some arbitrary reason (at least, she has no constitutional right to do so and AFAIK no state abortion laws allow her to do so), although under certain circumstances she may still have an abortion if it’s deemed medically necessary to protect her life or health.
So no, the issue of “choice” is not trivial or redundant here. Choosing an abortion for whatever reason one wants is not just the same thing, legally or constitutionally, as having an abortion that’s medically necessary.
kanicbird: Again I am not saying that the right to abort should be in the constitution (that’s another issue), I’m saying it’s not, and judicial activism has put it in, along with the above mentioned ‘right to privacy’ which is not in there either.
What about Griswold v. Connecticut, then, as I mentioned in my first post? Is there a constitutionally protected right to use birth control? If so, how would you justify it without invoking a “right to privacy”? And what about Lawrence v. Texas, which invoked the right to privacy to strike down anti-sodomy laws?
I don’t see a problem with arguing that the Constitution includes individual privacy as part of (what I believe are called) “penumbral rights”, and that individuals’ sexual and reproductive decisions are protected by that right to privacy from government interference.
If you want to argue otherwise, you are opening the door (as Blalron noted) to a whole lot of government interference in individuals’ sexual and reproductive lives, not just with regard to abortion but also to birth control, homosexual sex, and sexual behavior in general. That doesn’t sound particularly constitutional to me.
kanicbird: BTW the 14th is also the amendment which would have prevented J. Kerry from taking the office if he were elected president (aid and comfort to the enemy)
This sounds like complete tinfoil-hattery. I don’t mean to hijack, but as long as you brought it up, could you provide a cite for it?
Your notions of what is “really in” the Constitution and what isn’t sound as though they’re based on an interpretation of the Constitution that’s just as whimsical and politically-motivated as any of the “judicial activism” you’re complaining about. There ain’t no single, objective, universal interpretation of “what the Constitution really means”; the closest we can get to it is in the accumulated decisions of the courts, which most definitely do recognize (among other things) a constitutional right to privacy.
Kimstu I still don’t see why the word "choose’ must be used, but I don’t think it served to further the OP in either way, so I drop it. If it’s critical to your point then please bring it back up.
I understand what you say about the right to reproductive freedom and all the ‘good’ that comes from upholding that ‘right’ and agree with you that it should be Constitutionally protected, but disagree with you that it truly is, and that’s not good enough for me as these ‘assumed’ rights can be easily taken away. It’s much harder if it’s there in B&W.
I’m not for opening that door, but actually closing it one and for all, in writing in the Constitution.
As for Kerry, The 14th prohibits any one who gave aid and comfort to the enemy from becoming the Pres, I would say Kerry’s anti-US Military activities after he got discharged from Vietnam would qualify as the war was still on, and Kerry’s own words were used against our POW’s. I’m not sure what ‘proof’ your asking for, The amendment itself, or Kerry’s anti-US Military activity. Both should be easy to come by. For someone who claims the right to choose an abortion is in the Constitution, how can you deny if Kerry could not become President if we follow the Constitution?
There is a real danger when reading text in the Constitution without regard for history, tradition, or intent.
Of course, had John Kerry been elected, no serious person would believe for an instant that he was disqualified on the basis of the Fourteenth Amendment, which provides in Section 3:
This section was intended to penalize those who had participated in the Civil War in support of the South. Congress permanantly removed the disability for all persons under Section 3 in 1898. (See Act of June 6, 1898, ch. 389, 30 Stat. 432).
Even an hyper-activist Supreme Court would be on pretty shaky ground. The text clearly gives Congress the power to remove the disability, and Congress did. But I suppose a crazy Court could conclude that Congress lacked the power to prospectively remove the disability. That still leaves Mr. Kerry wihtout any judicial finding that he fits the description of having given aid and comfort to our enemies. So you’d need some sort of trial court determination of this fact as well before the Crazy Court could find Mr. Kerry ineligible under this section…
It is, to put it mildly, a highly unlikely scenario.
Of course, if you had asked Felix Frankfurter if there was a right to abortion in the Constitution, he’d have replied that finding it there was a highly unlikely scenario, too.
- Rick
From a strict constructionist p.o.v., since abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, there is neither Constitutionality nor Unconstitutionality to federal abortion laws. However, the Federal Gov’t has specifically outlined restrictions on what it may regulate. Restriction on abortion as a matter of positive law is constitutionally shaky at best. Abolishing state’s restrictions on abortion likewise.
Pragmatically, though, one nationwide rule sounded like a good idea. The Tenth Amendment isn’t everything.