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To: Paloma_55

Not necessarily. The "Right to Privacy" is a term which can be applied to several of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, collectively. For instance, the government does not have the right to search your home unless they have reasonable grounds to conclude that you have committed a crime.

Furthermore, the ninth amendment maintains that the enumeration of certain rights by the constitution may not be used to deny other rights. In other words, just because the Constitution doesn't say that a right exists doesn't mean that the government has the authority to deny you those rights.

The issue at stake in the abortion debate is not whether there exists a right to privacy -- Judge Roberts correctly stated that all nine Supreme Court judges believed in one -- but whether that right to privacy includes the right to obtain an abortion. This is where the issues of originalism, self-determination and judicial supremacy come into play: The founding fathers defintely did not believe that a right to an abortion was a natural (supra-constitional) right when they passed the ninth amendment, so does that mean that a later generation can assert that abortion rights are a natural right? And if so, how is that decision made, through legislation, jurisprudence, or constitutional amendment? And if the federal government does decide that such a right does exist, does it have the authority to impose that decision on the states?


44 posted on 09/14/2005 6:15:52 PM PDT by dangus
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To: dangus

To liberals the right of privacy embraces not only the right to abortion but to be secure in the right to engage in any form of sexual behavior. however deviant from the norm. Of course, the secret in defining deviancy down. If a woman has the right to kill her own progency, then any other form of sexual behavior looks tame in comparison.


98 posted on 09/14/2005 9:48:58 PM PDT by RobbyS ( CHIRHO)
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