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Alan Keyes on the unconstitionality of abortion (KCBI interview)
RenewAmerica.us ^ | March 16, 2006 | Alan Keyes

Posted on 03/17/2006 1:00:57 PM PST by Gelato

Alan Keyes on Jerry Johnson Live (KCBI)

Washington, D.C. ~~~ March 16, 2006

DR. JERRY JOHNSON, PRESIDENT OF CRISWELL COLLEGE, HOST: Ambassador Alan Keyes was appointed by Ronald Reagan to serve as a U.N. ambassador, and Dr. Keyes has a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He served eleven years in the State Department. He served as Assistant Secretary of State. And he's a two-time presidential candidate and a former Senate candidate. Welcome to the program, Dr. Keyes.

ALAN KEYES: Glad to be with you. Thank you.

[...snip...]

JOHSON: I'm talking to Dr. Alan Keyes. He served as an ambassador to the United Nations under President Reagan.

Dr. Keyes, another flash-point issue. Is abortion really a constitutional right?

KEYES: I, frankly, don't see how it can be.

And I am very pleased--I know that there are some people who are nominally part of the pro-life movement who think that what happened in South Dakota is a bad thing, where the legislature has passed a law to protect unborn children from abortion, and has done so leaving only, I think, a possibility that if the actual physical life of the mother is threatened, then something can be done to save her life, with the view to saving her life, not with the view of taking the life of the child.

I think that if you look at the Constitution, Blackmun wrote Roe vs. Wade as if there was no guidance in the Constitution as to whether the child in the womb is a person or not. Right?

JOHNSON: Right.

KEYES: And if you look at the decision, he actually says that if that child in the womb is to be treated as a person, then any right to abort that child falls away; has no ground or basis. So he pretended he has to look at philosophers, and he had to look at this and that law and international practice--everything under the sun. He didn't bother to look at the Constitution itself, where, right in the preamble, what does it say? That the overall aim of the whole frame of government in America is "to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."

Who are our posterity? Those who come after us who are not yet born. Yes?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh.

KEYES: Those who will come after us, including the generations yet unborn. That means that the Constitution puts the unborn on an equal plane with ourselves, and it was inexcusable that Blackmun pretended that there was no guide in the Constitution.

And the preamble, by the way, is used in precisely this way, in terms of deciding whether this or that interpretation of the Constitution should be the one that we follow. The one that is consistent with the goals laid out in the preamble is the one that is supposed to get preference.

So why didn't we even consider what the preamble had to say about the status of our posterity? It's an inexcusable, obvious kind of betrayal, really, of the document and of its clear, explicit wording--and he didn't even bother to look at it.

JOHNSON: Wow.

What do you predict on this partial-birth abortion ban, with the Supreme Court?

KEYES: I guess I'm not sure. I am not sure. The present make-up of the Court is such that we probably have a reliable four votes, right, to support the partial-birth abortion ban and even to overturn Roe, itself. But there is still the question of that critical fifth vote that is not yet there in a reliable way, and I'm not sure how that will turn out.

I think we have actually one more battle to fight before there is a reasonable hope that the court can be relied upon to respect the clear rights of our posterity.

JOHNSON: You're listening to Jerry Johnson Live. I'm talking to Dr. Alan Keyes, a former ambassador to the United Nations, appointed by President Reagan. He holds a Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.

... click for more ... the income tax, homosexual marriage


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Government; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: abortion; constitution; keyes; prolife; roe; scotus
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

Personal physical threats are also a no-no on FR, in case you haven't noticed.


41 posted on 03/17/2006 3:19:30 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: EternalVigilance
You value stare decis more than the lives of millions of babes in the womb.

No, I don't value the present condition of stare decisis. I do want it returned to its condition prior to the FDR court's massive expansion of the interstate commerce clause. In other words, I want it corrected.

Yet you claim to be 'pro-life'.

42 posted on 03/17/2006 3:20:35 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
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To: EternalVigilance
Personal physical threats are also a no-no on FR, in case you haven't noticed.

That's funny--I've had several made to me, hit abuse, and the posters have remained in good standing.

And there's also the matter of personal attacks. (Polite cough in direction of EternalVigilance.)

Must be one set of rules for us peons, and another set for the bubbas.

43 posted on 03/17/2006 3:22:57 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

You're so funny.


44 posted on 03/17/2006 3:24:33 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

Back to the subject of the thread:

Is it obvious from the preamble that the Founders intended for the blessings of liberty spelled out in the Constitution would apply to their posterity?


45 posted on 03/17/2006 3:26:49 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

You said: Bottom line: both penumbras and preambles are unenforceable. Keyes should stick to what he actually knows about.
***
You are correct, at least technically. However, preamble are relevant to the meaning and intention of the provisions that follow, not unlike legislative history. The preamble is not law, but it DOES suggest how the following language ought to be interpreted. I don't know if the analysis goes as far as Keyes suggests, it is certainly NOT appropriate to ignore the introductory language or any statute, and certainly not the constitution.


46 posted on 03/17/2006 3:29:32 PM PST by NCLaw441
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

You said, in part: 12 of the 13 original states did not outlaw abortion...
***
Not to outlaw something is not the same as to endorse it. Was abortion a common practice at the time? Was it recognized as a valid form of birth control? I am not suggesting I know the answer, I am just asking the question.


47 posted on 03/17/2006 3:45:48 PM PST by NCLaw441
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

You said, in part: 12 of the 13 original states did not outlaw abortion...
***
Not to outlaw something is not the same as to endorse it. Was abortion a common practice at the time? Was it recognized as a valid form of birth control? I am not suggesting I know the answer, I am just asking the question.


48 posted on 03/17/2006 3:45:50 PM PST by NCLaw441
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To: EternalVigilance
Is it obvious from the preamble that the Founders intended for the blessings of liberty spelled out in the Constitution would apply to their posterity?

Yes, it is.

The problem is the preamble is not enforceable in and of itself, as one can use just about any clause of same to support one's favorite social welfare or pork barrel expenditure. The notion that the preamble was some sort of enforceable clause got thrown out with the Carolingian "ship duty" cases of the 1670s for precisely this reason. Actual enforceable law goes in the body of the law or constitution.

Roe v. Wade is downright awful constitutional law. Its jurisprudential DNA is that of the Dred Scott decision--which required a Civil War to undo. It used an amazingly novel expansion of the 14th Amendment's equal protection clause (even by the ghastly standards of the Warren Court) to overturn abortion laws across the fruited plain. Leaving aside the issue of abortion (which I favor prohibiting in all instances but where the mother is in imminent danger of life and limb), it's the sort of ruling that just opens the door for all manner of further abuse.

Bottom line: to outlaw abortion at the federal level will require either (a) passing a state law (such as South Dakota's), overturning Roe at the Supreme Court, and a federal law (the less desirable course, but an acceptable stop-gap measure); or (b) amending the Constitution (a lot harder to do, but a lot harder to undo, which is why I favor it). And, IMNHO, the trends augur well for the latter course over the long term. (The pro-aborts, after all, have self-selected themselves out of the gene pool.)

49 posted on 03/17/2006 3:46:28 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
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To: NCLaw441
Not to outlaw something is not the same as to endorse it. Was abortion a common practice at the time? Was it recognized as a valid form of birth control?

No and no, but it wasn't generally illegal unless performed without the women's consent, or the consent of her husband if she were married.

50 posted on 03/17/2006 3:47:27 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

Okay.

I apologize for what I said.


51 posted on 03/17/2006 3:49:11 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

We still obviously have some disagreements over this, but you've made some points that are intellectualy honest and certainy defensible.

I shouldn't have accused you of supporting abortion.


52 posted on 03/17/2006 3:52:27 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: Echo Talon

Because society can not demand that one person sacrifice himself or herself by being passive when his or her life is threatened.

If the woman desires to sacrifice herself for her child, then that is a completely different matter. But, she should be counseled on the child's chances and no one should fault her for acting to preserver her life.


53 posted on 03/17/2006 3:53:22 PM PST by hocndoc (http://www.lifeethics.org/www.lifeethics.org/index.html)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Oddly enough, at the time you're discussing, this maxim was in force:

Qui in utero est, pro jam nato habetur quoties de ejus commodo quaeritur.
He who is in the womb, is considered as born, whenever it is for his benefit.

Maxims are enforcable, and this one was not limited to wills and estates.

54 posted on 03/17/2006 3:56:44 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: Gelato; ancient_geezer; pigdog; Taxman

Went and read the entire transcript.

Some real interesting comments by Dr. Keyes vis a vis fundamental tax reform as well!

http://www.keyesarchives.com/media/interviews/06_03_16jerryjohnson.htm


55 posted on 03/17/2006 4:03:22 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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To: Gelato

bttt


56 posted on 03/17/2006 4:04:08 PM PST by Christian4Bush (I'd much rather hunt with Dick Cheney than ride with Ted Kennedy.)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse
Its jurisprudential DNA is that of the Dred Scott decision--which required a Civil War to undo.

As an aside, it has always amazed me that conservatives who complain about the courts legislating from the bench and making bad law in the process, denigrate the Dred Scott case (Dred Scott v Sandford 60 US 393) as bad law. It was even argued twice, 1855 an 1856.

Actually, I have read it, from the first word to the last and all the 500 word sentences in between. It contains no novel interpretation of US and state law at the time. It used accepted law and custom prevailing at the time, framers' intent, and all the judicial management that original intent folks (of which I'm one) want the court to use today.

The judicial process in Dred Scott was nothing like the process used in the Roe Case.

57 posted on 03/17/2006 4:10:54 PM PST by William Terrell (Individuals can exist without government but government can't exist without individuals.)
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To: hocndoc
Because society can not demand that one person sacrifice himself or herself by being passive when his or her life is threatened.

If the woman desires to sacrifice herself for her child, then that is a completely different matter. But, she should be counseled on the child's chances and no one should fault her for acting to preserver her life.

Just wanted to see if people see the baby as a person like I do, thats all. Just asking the question, and you're correct the mother should not be frowned upon or anything if she chooses to save her life.

58 posted on 03/17/2006 4:12:31 PM PST by Echo Talon
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To: EternalVigilance

Apology accepted.


59 posted on 03/17/2006 4:41:25 PM PST by BeHoldAPaleHorse (Tagline deleted at request of moderator.)
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To: BeHoldAPaleHorse

Thanks.


60 posted on 03/17/2006 4:57:11 PM PST by EternalVigilance ("After all I've done for you people!!!" -John McCain)
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