Privacy argument isn't relevant in abortion debate

Yuma Sun ^ | 02.11.06 | TIBOR R. MACHAN

[AZRepublican]

Ninth Amendment is a beautiful Amendment, but unfortuantly for liberal whacko justices it conveys no personal rights.

[taxcontrol]

I agree that Roe argues the wrong point. It is even stated in Roe that if Congress recognizes the unborn as a US citizen then the whole abortion issue is moot.

[TeenagedConservative]

No Amendments convey rights. The Constitution has nothing to do with individual rights; all individual rights are assumed; the Constitution only specifies how much ability the government has to limit those rights. It is impossible for me, as a citizen, to violate the Constitution. Only the government can.

[Paloma_55]

Justice is about balance, is it not?

The blind lady with a scale....

So, given two issues, the balanced position is the one that would make a fulcrum point.

Now, I am going to draw "Right to privacy" and "Right to life" on a scale. One has a weight, the other a weight. Where is the balance between them? (Privacy=1000, Life=1,000,000,000,000....)

Privacy------------------------------------------^Life

This illustrates that the balance between privacy and life says that life is given supreme weight and you can not balance it against anything but another life.

[Vn_survivor_67-68]

Press Release: Conviction of Scott Peterson for the Murder of Both ...CHICAGO, November 12, 2004 – Today's conviction of Scott Peterson for the double homicide of both Laci Peterson and her unborn son, Conner, shows that fetal ...

www.unitedforlife.org/press_releases/ 041112_conviction_of_scott_peterson.htm

[Paloma_55]

Not clear of your point. Maybe I was unclear.

[AmericanChef]

-"Is the being to be killed in an abortion a human being or is it human only potentially?"-

Could it end up an alien? A puppy? A cardboard box? I'm gonna say...no.

[John Semmens]

Overturn Roe v. Wade?

by John Semmens

Now that John Roberts has been nominated to the Supreme Court, partisans on both the left and right are demanding to know where he stands on the issue of abortion. Would he vote to uphold the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision that overturned state laws restricting abortions?

Under a properly functioning judiciary, it is improper for judges to be asked how they will rule on a case prior to hearing the evidence specifically pertaining to that case. The idea is that a judge is to weigh this evidence in order to render a just verdict.

Wanting to know how someone will vote prior to taking office is appropriate when that office is one designated as part of the lawmaking portion of government. We want to know what kind of new laws candidates for the legislature might enact. We want to know what kind of laws candidates for the presidency might ask the legislature to pass and that he would sign.

That advance information on policy positions is being sought from a prospective new member of the Supreme Court is an indication that the courts have been diverted from their intended function of rendering justice according to existing law to an unconstitutional role of making law.

The Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision is representative of a court diverted into a lawmaking role. Justice Harry Blackmun wrote the majority opinion that struck down a Texas law limiting abortions to cases where the life of the mother was endangered. The grounds cited were that “the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision.”

Some critics of the Roe v. Wade decision have assailed Blackmun’s assertion that there is a Constitutionally protected right to privacy. Indeed, the word “privacy” does not appear in the Constitution. The word “private” does appear, but only in conjunction with the word property in the Fifth Amendment.

This line of criticism misconstrues the purpose of the Constitution. The Constitution is a document designed to limit government. The absence of an explicit mention of a right to privacy in the document should not be interpreted to mean people do not possess such a right. To do so implies that the Constitution itself is a grant of privileges from the government to the people and that any privilege not expressly granted is not protected from government encroachment.

The Founders anticipated this possible misunderstanding and inserted the Ninth Amendment. This amendment states that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” Quite simply, the right to privacy is one of those retained rights.

Does this then mean that Roe v. Wade was correctly decided? I think not. The issue with abortion is not invasion of privacy by the government. The issue is harm to another person. Namely, abortion is the taking of another person’s life. That a person intent on committing such a deed would prefer to do so in private is understandable.

The government, however, has an obligation to protect an individual’s life. Laws against abortion are a means of fulfilling this fundamental obligation. The Roe v. Wade decision impedes state governments from carrying out this obligation.

A just and humane government is incompatible with the carnage unleashed by this 1973 Supreme Court decision. Roe v. Wade ought to be overturned. Maybe John Roberts can play a role in achieving this.

[Question_Assumptions]

There are two hinge issues in the abortion debate. The first is when the unborn becomes a person. I think there are only two solid objective answers to that question -- at fertilization or at about two years of age (after birth, that is). The second question is that even if an unborn child is a person, does a woman have a right to abort it anyway. There are pro-abortion people who will argue in favor of this. Framed in this way, a lot of pro-abortion people will follow those slippery slopes to the point where infanticide is OK and/or women don't have any responsibility to care for their own children. That's really the only way to maintain a philosophically sound pro-abortion argument. And that's usually when the lose whatever popular support they had.

[Question_Assumptions]

FYI, I point out that there are two hinge issues because the classic pro-abortion tactic is to toggle between the two. Start to prove that the unborn are persons and they'll switch to a privacy argument without every acknowledging that they lost the argument and the unborn are persons. Start to argue that a woman has a responsiblity to to unborn person within her, assuming that it's a person, and they'll switch back to arguing it's not a person without ever admitting that women have a responsiblity not to kill their own children. It's a nifty game they play that keeps the pro-life side running around in circles and allows them to stall and stall and stall without ever admitting they are wrong. The key to stopping the whole cycle is that as soon as you see them shifting the subject, ask them to acknowledge that they've lost the previous part of the debate and that thye are shifting the subject. Otherwise, it's like playing a game of "I know you are but what am I?" with a child.

[Aussie Dasher]

If I kill my neighbour and don't tell anyone, am I merely exercising my right to privacy?

[MHGinTN]

"... to pretend that the issue isn’t about when human beings come into being but about the right to privacy is to confuse matters and postpone a reasonable solution." Well, the Subpreme Court of 1973 took this route in order to create a law for a special class, in order to bypass the lawful legislators of States and the Federal and shape the society in the image of their liberal bias. It worked, but at an horrific cost of more than forty million slaughtered Americans!

As hatellary rodhamster prepares for her run at the highest elected office, watch for democrat 'worker bees' to try and reshape the argument regarding abortion just as this writer has done, seeking to focus the debate upon a 'new perspective regarding the humanity of the unborn': are they yet human when they are slaughtered? Are they yet fully human? Is the writer of the article yet fully huamn? [At what age did the writer become fully human? You see, any dissembled escape clause will do for blood drenched democrat leaders in order to divert from the Truth and continue being empowered politicially by the slaughter of the alive unborn.]

With the approaching elections, we will be bombarded with classic triangulation and senator clinton's degenerate husband and his minions are the masters of this form of deceit. The nation is in for a very bad time leading up to 2008, almost as delicate as the nation faced over the slavery issue, the exception being that the societal engineers have thoroughly prepared the voters over the past decades, dumbing them down in 'public schools' and encouraging millions of women to avail themselves of murder inc. at a government funded abortuary.

[cpforlife.org]

Please let me know if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[Smartass]

Privacy is not, nor should be an abortion issue. I have always been amazed at how rights groups, and federal judges have gone through great lengths to protect species like the “Spotted Owl,” while in the next breath, toss a human life in the scrap heap. The fertilization of an animal or human egg is exactly that, the beginning of life.

Letting a bird, turtle, or any egg drop and smash on the ground, or in the case of a human, abort a fetus is the same scenario. That life has been killed, destroyed, ended. Shamefully, since Roe v. Wade, over 45 million abortions have been performed.

[Lexinom]

I've always made the connection to the scenario wherein I have the right to put a .357 slug into someone's head provided I do so in the privacy of my own living room. Abortion is no different.

In fact, it's worse: Except in the 1.3% of abortions performed in rape cases, the very presense of the child in the first place is a result of a man and woman's actions - not the child's.

Abortion is not a privacy issue. It is not a medical issue. It is a criminal justice issue because it involves the brutal execution of another human being. In a just society, that human being needs first be tried and convicted of a capital crime before being dismembed sans anasthesia.

[Smartass]

[potlatch]

LOVELY!!

[potlatch]

Good post SmartA