Posted on 08/28/2007 11:38:07 AM PDT by WalterSkinner
..Federalism, does not empower the states to violate a fundamental right which permeates our foundational documents— taking of innocent life...
You can say that all you want. However, that does not revoke Roe. It does not recognize the personhood of a fetus. Like it or not, SCOTUS is the current arbiter. Any legislation would have to survive SCOTUS. Any amendment would require 3/4s of the states to ratify - can you find 38 states that would do such in this day and age?
I will push for what I think is possible now (getting Roe overturned), and hope that incremental steps will create momentum for larger steps later as public mood swings against abortion.
No, actually. Roe V. Wade left open the possibility that the legislature could define personhood, which was not explicit in the constitution. There is a very real chance, especially with a conservative leaning court, that any challenge to the Right to Life Act would fail. Like I said, it must be on all fronts. And one of those fronts MUST be a amendment to overturn R.v W. as well. Life is not a states right issue if you understand the unborn to be human beings.
So you define all those who see the unborn as human lives as activists? The only activists are those trying to obscure that FACT.
Nonsense. Hunter has a chance and that chance grows by the day.
I want federalists who will uphold the Constitution and determine if laws presented to them are consistent with such. I don't want an activist reading even if I agree with the end result. It just means activists of a different slant can tilt it back the other way next time.
On privacy grounds? Ain't gonna happen.
Roe's main premise is that the unborn are not persons vis a vis the Fourteenth Amendment. Even Blackmun admitted that if the unborn were persons, the Fourteenth applied.
From Roe:
"The appellee and certain amici argue that the fetus is a "person" within the language and meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length and in detail the well-known facts of fetal development. If this suggestion of personhood is established, the appellant's case, of course, collapses, for the fetus' right to life would then be guaranteed specifically by the Amendment."
But, in response to the clear words of the Fourteenth Amendment...
["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."]
They found this:
"All this, together with our observation, supra, that throughout the major portion of the 19th century prevailing legal abortion practices were far freer than they are today, persuades us that the word "person," as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn."
Privacy was simply the excuse.
The right to privacy is a very real one, and has been recognized as "the right to be left alone," all the way back to the Marshall court.
"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." - the Fourth Amendment
In its broader sense, though, it is unenumerated, as are many rights. That's why we have the Ninth Amendment - to preclude the violation of rights just because they're not listed. [For example: You have a right of privacy that assures that you can raise your children pretty much the way you see fit. That is not listed in the Constitution, but the right is an obvious natural right that few are dumb enough not to see as self-evident.]
But, they made this largely unenumerated right, privacy, trump a God-given right that IS enumerated repeatedly in our Constitution, in the Preamble and the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, and in prior founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the God-given, unalienable right to live.
IOW, they misused the right to privacy. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
And, even if by sheer political force you did overturn Roe on the basis of privacy, we would be worse off than before in many ways. The personhood of the unborn would still be unprotected and unestablished, and the very real right to privacy would have been declared nonexistent.
No truly “federalist” position calls for the alienation of the God-given rights to life and liberty by any individual or state.
Hence my tagline...
Exactly. With Ronald Reagan's platform declaring the self-evident personhood of the unborn as the unshakable core of every argument.
I hate to tell you this, but the fedgov has taken many, many strides away from originalist federalism, and you ain't gonna get back to the future in one giant leap that I can see.
Overturn Roe, and states can start to overturn abortion. Demand a total federal ban on abortion, and I sincerely doubt we'll make any progress.
So in that regard, overturning Roe is a federalist position. It removes an activist clamp on action at the state level to ban abortion. I'd rather start with the possible, even if it isn't a full ban.
Pissant:
Read a poll sometime; Ain’t happenin’ my friend. Wouldn’t it be better for all conservatives to get behind the man that’s in 2nd place behind a gun-grabbing, pro-abortion, pro-homosexual agenda RINO?
I do not share your view of what constitutes an activist. I am not one. But I know very well, for a fact, that my children were human beings long before they left my wifes womb. As such it is not activism to think they deserve constitutional protection based on the 5th and 14th amendments.
I want federalists too. But I want those who understand that our right to life comes from God the Father. George Washington, James Madison, Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin would approve. Federalism is great when talking about things not mentioned in the constitution. Those are reserved to the states.
I don't see overturning Roe regarding privacy. I instead see it as reversing an activist reading of the 9th via Griswold, which turns the core meaning of the 9th on its ear.
I agree there is a right to privacy. However, it is not a federal perogative to enforce that right. The 9th simply tells the feds they have no say in the matter, other than aspects of privacy addressed in the 4th and 5th.
The Constitution is the law.
The founders made it clear in the Preamble, the pretext for the document, that it was written and enacted to "secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity."
They wisely put future generations, us, on equal footing with themselves when it came to the right to enjoy the Blessings of Liberty.
Then, in the Fifth Amendment, the very heart of the original Bill of Rights, they made it very clear:
"No person shall be...deprived of life...without due process of law..." [ie a fair trial on a capital offense.]
The Fourteenth Amendment, added much later, simply expands on what was already clear in the Fifth.
As far as I know, every State constitution contains identical language...some of them adopting the immortal pro-life words from the Declaration as well.
If you're a sane person, and can recognize the simple self-evident fact that an unborn child is a person, you can't then argue that they aren't therefore protected by our Constitution. Not even Blackmun was foolish enough to assert that. He had to invent the fiction that the unborn aren't people.
If Ronald Reagan were alive today, I'm confident he too would be supporting the SCOTUS striking down Roe and returning the abortion issue to the states. As Reagan said:
"Our nation-wide policy of abortion on demand through all nine months of pregnancy was neither voted for by our people, nor enacted by our legislators--not a single state had such unrestricted abortion before the Supreme Court decreed it to be national policy in 1973. [It was] an act of raw judicial power"...
"Make no mistake, abortion-on-demand is not a right granted by the Constitution. Nowhere do the plain words of the Constitution even hint at a "right" so sweeping as to permit abortion up to the time the child is ready to be born."
Just raising the argument as it pertains to a right to life amendment, is fine for debate purposes. Its doesn't work in any practical sense. Lets take one bit out of abortion on demand and keep working on building support for a Human Rights amendement. Just as Reagan called for.
"My Administration is dedicated to the preservation of America as a free land, and there is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning."
Too bad he can't win...
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." - The Ninth Amendment
It simply says that just because a right isn't enumerated doesn't mean it doesn't exist. Nothing more, nothing less.
Is fred better than Rudy? By a country mile. Is Fred better than Hunter, I’m afraid not.
Get some states to ban abortion. Uphold those bans.
Then have someone challenge legal abortion laws to SCOTUS. Someone with standing, such as the father of a child that was aborted. Maybe then there will be a fetus/personhood ruling. Remember that SCOTUS will turn aside cases where there is no standing or tort.
That is what I mean by activist. Ruling when the ruling is germane. The ruling has to come to SCOTUS. With Roe, Douglas helped engineer getting the case to SCOTUS.
(Ron) Paul introduced The Sanctity of Life Act of 2005, a bill that would have defined human life to begin at conception, and removed challenges to prohibitions on abortion from federal court jurisdiction.[88] Defining embryos and fetuses as persons would make abortion murder and outlaw fetal stem cell research and some contraception and fertility treatments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Ron_Paul
In addition, Dr. Paul has gave more than 4,000 babies new lives.
Not to play the "My candidate is more pro-life than yours!" game, but the author should realize there are other candidates who are deeply pro-life too.
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