The “intent” of the authors of the amendment is not relevant. What is relevant is the WORDS. The amendment does not refer to “former slaves” or to “negroes.” The amendment forbids the states to deny “any person” the “equal protection of the laws.”
Would it be a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment if a state declared that its homicide laws protect white people only? Of course it would. Just so, it is a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment if a state holds that its homicide laws apply only to people who live outside the womb.
People who claim that the Fourteenth Amendment “only applies to blacks” are ignoring the plain meaning of the WORDS of the amendment.
The right to life is without question the supreme right.
I wonder how many of those here who are following Rick Perry down the “states’ rights trumps unalienable rights,” “pro-choice for states” primrose path, would like to explain how their “logic” holds up while substituting any other God-given, unalienable right for the supreme right.
Such as:
Free speech.
Freedom of the press.
The right to peaceably assemble.
The right of free political association.
Religious liberty.
The right to petition government for redress of grievances.
The Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
A fair trial by a jury of your peers.
Parental rights.
I’ve asked folks who take this position this a zillion times, and they, unsurprisingly, just can’t deal with the question.
“People who claim that the Fourteenth Amendment “only applies to blacks” are ignoring the plain meaning of the WORDS of the amendment.”
Slightly off topic - the 14th amendment was NOT constitutionally ratified! A Barak Obummer birth certificate that lives for over 130 years. And now - fire in the theater.
That method of interpretation is call "textualism". It allows the person interpreting it to attribute to the words any one of a various meanings they might have, or come to have in modern lexicon. It makes no attempt to determine the original intent of the authors.
"On every question of construction, let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debates, and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or invented against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."
-Thomas Jefferson
I see no reason that should apply any less to any subsequent amendments than it does to the Constitution proper.
You can declare the "intent" of the authors irrelevant if you want. I won't follow you there, or anywhere else by that path.