I find the abortion arguments irrelevant distractions, the emotionalism they engender gets in the way of rational thought.
No "Judicial Activism" is needed to recognize our right to privacy merely because it is "unenumerated".
Under the Ninth Amendment all unenumerated rights are intended to be equal to the few enumerated rights.
Let me put it this way, We have the right to do any thing we please that is not specifically illegal!
This is a major difference between the American philosophy and most of the rest of the world.
In the regimes of Europe and the East people can only do what is expressly allowed.
It may even be THE major factor underlying the European, Eastern, and Islamo-facist hatred of us.
Their jealousy of our freedom is not a reason for us to surrender any of that freedom.
I will stand by our right to privacy, no matter what elegant or brutal argument is made against it, it is conceivable that I may die to defend it.
If your fear is that other unenumerated rights may become common, it would appear that you fear "too much liberty".
Clearly we are not going to settle this, I will continue to know that we DO have a right to privacy, without undo worry that our liberties are going to be further restricted in the name of "new rights".
It has been my observation that Gov. Org. already has plenty of pretext to diminish our existing rights without resorting to such arcane ruses.
The main point is that for every new right the Supreme Court finds you have in the Constitution, it is wresting power away from the states and away from you and bestowing it on themselves and the federal government.
That is the danger and I can't understand why you are unable to see it.
Wow! So we have the right to do any thing we please unless the government says we can't.
Some rights.
That is the only line in any of your posts that I have to quibble about and I think that this just may have been typed in haste and that we actually do agree.
Congress can make just about anything illegal but that doesn't make it right and I don't think that is what you meant. Campaign Finance Reform comes to mind.
Just a quick summation to eliminate confusion, DG.
Our rights are inherent by virtue of our creation. They impose no duty or cost upon another to provide them for us and they cannot be used to impinge upon or deny the rights of others.
That's why there can be no such thing as a right to a car or health care or safety. Each of those 'rights' would impose a cost or a duty upon others. Abortion cannot be a 'right' either because it denies the most basic of all rights of another -- the right to life.