Posted on 10/20/2005 10:37:34 AM PDT by Birdstrike
Edited on 10/20/2005 11:31:23 AM PDT by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
A very long time ago, I had a friend who had a girlfriend who became pregnant and did not want the child. By then my friend had disappeared and the young woman was alone -- she was in fact from Germany -- and asked me to arrange an abortion for her. With little thought, I did so. She went home to Germany and I never saw her again.
I would do things a bit differently now. I would give the matter much more thought. I no longer see abortion as directly related to sexual freedom or feminism, and I no longer see it strictly as a matter of personal privacy, either. It entails questions about life -- maybe more so at the end of the process than at the beginning, but life nonetheless.
This is not a fashionable view in some circles, but it is one that usually gets grudging acceptance when I mention it. I know of no one who has flipped on the abortion issue, but I do know of plenty of people who no longer think of it as a minor procedure that only prudes and right-wingers oppose. The antiabortion movement has made headway.
That shift in sentiment is not apparent in polls because they do not measure doubt, only position: for or against. But between one and the other, black or white, is a vast area of gray where up or down, yes or no, fades to questions about circumstance: Why, what month, etc.? Whatever the case, the very basis of the Roe v. Wade decision -- the one that grounds abortion rights in the Constitution -- strikes many people now as faintly ridiculous. Whatever abortion may be, it cannot simply be a matter of privacy.
That right of privacy, first enunciated ...
Excerpt. Story continues at Washington Post
That's like saying I can kill another human life because it's a "private matter." The SC disregarded the right of the baby to live, once it was conceived and possessed life. Probably the most dubious, horrific, legal decision ever foisted upon American society and the prime reason for the "adjudicate, don't legislate" clamor coming from a growing number of Americans.
Now, it appears, the first crack in the pro-death camp's armor...one of their front line columnists has fresh doubts and agrees that Roe was terrible law and supports letting the states decide the issue for themselves...which is what they did in the first place before the Warren Court exerted it's judicial tyranny and summarily threw out all of the state laws on the issue.
In a nutshell, this is a microcosm of the difference between liberal and conservative approaches to issues. The Conservatives approach: "This is a matter for the people of each state to decide on their own."
The Liberals approach: "We know better than that trailer trash, but we can't possibly get this through the legislatures...so let's get the Courts to declare it a "right" and we'll ram it down their throats!"
And that's what happened.
Note that conservatives are not saying, "We say no abortions ever and we want judges to outlaw the procedure!" That may be our personal opinions but that would be judicial activism from the right...and that is just as wrong as when it comes from the left. Judges should not make laws....period. They adjudicate the Constitution and laws passed by legislatures. Is that so hard to do? For some Courts, it was.
The only correct course, as many Constitutional scholars have held..is for each side to make its case to the people...and to let the people ultimately decide for themselves through their elected state legislatures.
Conservatives do not fear that...in fact we welcome it and have high hopes that the Roberts Court will bring it to pass by returning the issue to the states where it rightfully belongs. Unlike the left, we are confident that Americans will do the right thing...and express through their legislatures their desire to protect the lives of the innocent pre-born from being butchered in an abortion chamber and reject abortion on demand as a constitutional right.
The abortion industry backed by Planned Parenthood (a misnomer if there ever was one) fears this outcome at any cost and is fighting to prevent it.
But they will lose this one.
Stunnig, Richard should watch his back.
This is so huge and serious that I'm going to use the correct spellings.
This is like a huge crack in the wall of liberalism, for one of its anointed spokesmen to do a 180 on this.
Yes, how dare he break faith and speak his conscience.
But abortion? It doesn't effect them. It's THAT parent's choice. It's the parents child not yours. No big deal.
The only difference is the age of the child!!!!!!!!!!
"Faintly"?
But I agree with you; this is an interesting article, and Cohen deserves some kudos for questioning the rationale for the Roe decision within the temple of liberalism that is the Wa. Post.
I believe that Roe v. Wade will ultimately be struck down, but not on the basis of throwing out the "right to privacy" or de-linking abortion from privacy. It will collapse due to the absurd and subjective rationale Blackmun wrote into the decision having to do with "viability." Medicine and technology have already largely rendered Blackmun's concept of viability tied to trimesters as outmoded. To based a "constitutional right" upon such a subjective rationale was a fatal flaw in the decision.
But even when I was pro-choice, I recognized that Roe was a terrible decision. And I was bitterly disappointed that many who were at the time on my "side" refused to recognize this, that they held up Roe as a model of perfect jurisprudence. They failed to see that the end (legal abortion) did not even remotely justify the means (ignoring the Constitution) and they were perfectly willing to throw the baby out with the, uh, baby.
It's pretty much how I feel today about Griswold. I'm all for contraception, and that I do think is a matter of personal liberty. But like it or not, nothing in the Constitution prohibits the states from prohibiting contraception. I'd vehemently oppose any state law prohibiting contraception, but I just as vehemently oppose a Supreme Court ruling that such laws are unconstitutional.
Mr. Cohen, prepare to be burned at the stake. You are going to make a lot of people who make a lot of money a lot of mad.
Liberals see the writing on the walls. They know that Roe is seeing its last days. They will find a way to make themselves feel better about it, by agreeing that it is bad law. I consider this a form of rationalization.
They throw fits when a mother leaves her newborn in a dumpster. However in some areas there is talk of permitting euthenasia up to 1 year after birth.
Some liberals and some conservatives are returning to the view that the Constitution is the Constitution, not a word game to support your personal positions.
I believe in a right to privacy.
I just don't believe the Constitution contains one.
The Constitution needs ammending, not interpreting.
SO9
Agree. Privacy or viability; it fails either test. I trust the Roberts Court will take it on...
On the one hand I hope you are right. My problem is that I totally despise the democrats and believe only the most cynical and worst of possibilities, especially with such a proven manipulative vermin as Cohen.
Me too.
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