Ping!
Last line says....some behaviors...like abortion...are criminal
I posted here the idea that the Constitution actually does have a ban on abortion.
In the Preamble, it says "...and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity..."
I suggested that the "Blessings of Liberty" refers to rights granted from God (Blessings and Liberty being capitalized, and Liberty being one of three capitalized rights from the Declaration from our Creator), and "secure... our posterity" means for our children and their children.
How can we "secure" "Blessings" for "our posterity" if we allow "our posterity" to be aborted?
-PJ
Abortion not in the Constitution?!?
Oh, it’s there, right under “Treason...Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort.”
And if the genocidal murder of 50 million unborn Americans isn’t giving aid and comfort to our enemies, not to mention being a crime against humanity, then what is?
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I am not sure why Scalia says abortion in the Constitution, he seems to be saying that it's a states' rights issue. But he does say it was a crime. If anyone understands this more clearly, let me know!
Nothing is silent in our founding documentation. It clearly states those limited responsibilities not outlined herein are left to the people.
Government should not be involved.
Justice Scalia is a right smart man...
His statement should be understood to mean that there is no expressed “right to abortion” in the Constitution like there is a right to freedom of religion, speech, assembly, etc.
That DOES NOT MEAN, however, that Scalia (or anyone else) can assume that ONLY those rights specified or else denied in the Constitution itself are reserved to the People or the States.
Furthermore, Scalia, I’m sure, was speaking specifically about the Constitution, but he wasn’t purposefully excluding the Declaration of Independence, which is technically considered as much a part of American Jurisprudence as the Constitution.
When the Declaration (AND the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, for that matter) specifically guarantee all Americans the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,” within that context, abortion is most certainly addressed.
One last point, which Scalia is ultimately right about. The real solution of the Abortion issue, at least in the legal sense, is legislative, NOT legal. This should be dealt with by State Legislatures, and the Congress. Perhaps another clearly worded Constitutional Amendment one day.
Of course, the only solution that will END abortion is spiritual — changing human hearts. But that addresses the issue in a realm Scalia cannot comment on officially.
Scalia is a smart man. A good justice. But he’s not perfect. If given the opportunity, at least we know he’d overturn Roe v. Wade. Save your stones for someone who would actually kill children.
Attacking the Constitution because it is over 200 years old.....
I have a question:
How old are the Ten Commandments?????
Those don’t seem to be in need of changing.
Actually, it's a representative republic, but other than that, he's right.
Sack the judges.
The Declaration of Independence is not the highest law of the land. It is not even a statute. It was a statement of our intent to become independent as a country.
The Law of the Land is the Constitution (and the treaties negotiated under it).
Now, it is true that the Declaration holds up the Lockean triad of life, liberty, and property (property included under the jeffersonian phrase “pursuit of happiness.”) This is part of our culture and tradition, derived from British Enlightenment philosophy.
As for the commandment “Though shalt not commit murder,” it probably did not have abortion in mind, judging by subsequent Jewish law, which allows abortion under specific circumstances.
But note that there has been considerable advance in biology since the olden days. We now know that genetically a fetus is a distinct individual from the very time of conception. It is not simply a blob of its mother’s cell, to become a “person” at some later “ensoulment.” If one is to be modern (as liberals pretend), then look at what science shows: a fetus is a new human being.
Abortion is a killing, and of that there can be no doubt whatsoever. Whether it is to be called legally murder, is a matter of whether one thinks that abortion is a justifiable killing, such as a legitimate punishment, or a defensive measure against an attacker.
As a fetus has committed no crime, and has not been convicted in any court of law, it cannot in justice be made to suffer capital punishment. Nor is a fetus a dangerous attacker, like a murderous home-invader, or a terrorist of some sort. So it is really completely irrational to allow abortion, which usually is merely a form of convenience killing, except perhaps if the safety of the mother’s life is at issue. That latter exception is allowed by most authorities in Jewish Law, and is favored by the overwhelming proportion of our people. With modern medicine available, it is a rare case where such abortions might be necessary, and should always be a occasion of sadness and regret — and we should never dehumanize the process by calling it merely a “procedure,” or by some other euphemism.
I was having a discussion with a neighbor before the last election. She asked me how I could support the Republicans when they opposed the “right to chose.” I told her that I supposed that it was because we oppose the killing of unborn children. She skoffed, and said that it might have bothered her as a nurse to be involved in abortions, but now that she has helped with many, she sees them as done cleanly and carefully, and she is quite used to it.
I must say that I was shocked, rather than reassured by her first-hand report. Here was a neighbor, a nice Jewish woman, who instantly made me recall the guards at prison camps during the Holocaust: “At first it bothered us, but then we got used to it.” That seems to be the way the Devil works.
The clincher in the abortion issue, I think, is the support of abortion-advocates for “partial-birth abortions.” Almost all of them support this totally unnecessary form of killing. From this we should all see that it is not the woman’s life or other interests which are their concern, but that something truly diabolical is at work here.