Posted on 07/07/2016 3:42:10 PM PDT by Steve Schulin
The 14th Amendment (14A) is actually one of the problem constitutional amendments that helped to foster abortion imo.
More specifically, John Bingham, the main author of Section 1 of 14A, evidently did not foresee the problems with abortion that we are now having. This is evidenced by the language of Section 1.
14th Amendment, Section 1: All persons born [emphasis added] or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
Section 1 indicates that constitutional citizenship rights begin at birth, corrections, insights welcome.
It remains that the Founding States made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution’s silence about things like abortion means that abortion is a state power issue, not the business of the feds. In fact, pro-abortion activist justices stole 10th Amendment-protected state power to legislate the so-called right to have an abortion from the bench imo.
As previously posted in this thread, the 17th and 19th Amendments also contributed the unconstitutional establishment of the fictitious constitutional “right” to have an abortion imo, low-information women trading their votes for corrupt federal lawmakers in exchange for unconstitutional federal funding for abortion.
Trump’s heart for the country is in the right place imo. Although he evidently doesn’t have a grip on the federal government’s constitutionally limited powers - he’s a product of our messed up schools like everybody else is - I am confident that patriots who get him up to speed on the fed’s limited powers will find that he is an excellent student.
The privileges of citizenship are one thing. The unalienable rights of persons are a quite different thing. No person, including those who aren’t citizens, shall be deprived of their life without due process. There’s lots of controversy about 14th Amendment, but it doesn’t at all detract from the right to life of anyone.
If Bingham had used the word conceived instead of “born” in 14A’s Section 1 then we probably wouldn’t be having this discussion.
The word born in 14th Amendment is relevant to citizenship. Not all persons are citizens. That has nothing to do with whether it is lawful to deprive any person of their life without due process. I don’t understand why you apparently think it does. This constitutional requirement (that no person shall be deprived of their life without due process) applies to all persons, not just citizens.
I appreciate what you are pointing out.
The problem is that “person” must now be defined. And getting back to my earlier argument that John Bingham evidently didn’t foresee the problems that we are now having with abortion, the wording of Section 1 is consequently unclear on when personhood begins, pro-abortion justices undoubtedly happy to interpolate from Section 1 that personhood starts from birth.
As evidence that Section 1 doesn’t clearly define “person,” consider that federal lawmakers are politicking bills that define personhood as beginning at conception.
H.R. 816: Life at Conception Act
But also consider that a federal law establishing personhood at birth is not going to provide the protections for the unborn that pro-lifers are looking for. This is because pro-abortion activist justices would find such a protection unconstitutional. So an appropriate constitutional amendment is the best remedy imo, but still subject to attack by activist justices.
Again, and noting that I am pro-life, if Bingham had used the word conceived instead of born, then we woudn’t be having this conversation.
Otherwise, I’ve been noting that the Founding States had made the 10th Amendment to clarify that the Constitution’s silence about abortion means that such issues are not only automatically and uniquely state power issues, not the business of the feds (Texas should have won Roe v. Wade), but also that Congress has no constitutional Article I, Section 8-limited power to tax and spend for abortion purposes.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
I don’t remember if I have already mentioned it in this thread, but imo corrupt federal politicians are exploiting the ill-conceived 17th Amendment, and also the 19th Amendment, by promising low-information women federal funding for abortions, such women likely not understanding that the feds have no constitutional autohrity to tax and spend for such a purpose.
* The meaning of the word person has never, in our history as a nation, been anything but clear. Look it up in any dictionary. A person is an individual human being.
* If pro-abortion judges choose to point to a clause in the constitution about citizenship and claim it gives them wiggle room on allowing the depriving of any person without due process, well, their opinion should be ignored by all, and their abrogation of their oath to support the Constitution should be the basis of impeachment.
* We’ve elected a Congress chock full of judicial supremacists. Let’s change that. Urge folks you know to stop voting for candidates who fail to support the Constitution and instead act as though we are a judicial oligarchy.
* I suspect you’d agree that most of the bills passed by Congress are unconstitutional. Are you suggesting that Congress illustrates better judgement on so-called prolife matters than on all the rest?
* I still don’t understand why you think a clause about citizens has any relevance to the unalienable rights of persons.
* The Constitution is not silent about abortion. The Constitution is quite clear in stating that no person shall be deprived of their life without due process. The 5th Amendment applied to Federal government. The 14th Amendment repeated this provision and added that it applies to each state, too.
* Any discussion about depriving persons of their lives without due process that elevates other issues to the fore is obfuscatory.
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