Madame Speaker assumes facts not in evidence: Unlike right to bear arms, right to abortion never mentioned in the Constitution.
Justice Alito writing in today's Dobbs decision:
For the first 185 years after the adoption of the Constitution, each State was permitted to address this issue in accordance with the views of its citizens. Then, in 1973, this Court decided Roe v. Wade, 410 U. S. 113. Even though the Constitution makes no mention of abortion, the Court held that it confers a broad right to obtain one. It did not claim that American law or the common law had ever recognized such a right, and its survey of history ranged from the constitutionally irrelevant (e.g., its discussion of abortion in antiquity) to the plainly incorrect (e.g., its assertion that abortion was probably never a crime under the common law). After cataloging a wealth of other information having nobearing on the meaning of the Constitution, the opinion concluded with a numbered set of rules much like those that might be found in a statute enacted by a legislature.
Under this scheme, each trimester of pregnancy was regulated differently, but the most critical line was drawn atroughly the end of the second trimester, which, at the time,corresponded to the point at which a fetus was thought toachieve “viability,” i.e., the ability to survive outside thewomb. Although the Court acknowledged that States had a legitimate interest in protecting “potential life,”1 it found that this interest could not justify any restriction on previability abortions. The Court did not explain the basis for this line, and even abortion supporters have found it hard to defend Roe’s reasoning. (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).
Thanks!