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The Fourteenth Amendment starts by referring to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States" and provides that they are citizens of the United States and of the state in which they reside. In the same section, it is provided that no state shall "deprive any person of life . . . without due process of law." Since this due process clause was carried forward from that of the Fifth Amendment, one would think it referred to the same persons. That inference is supported by the Amendment’s speaking of persons born or naturalized. None of these categories include unborn children. Thus, both the history and the texts of the two due process clauses demonstrate that they have nothing to do with the issue of abortion.

Neither does either category include unnaturalized or illegal immigrants. Perhaps I am misunderstanding Judge Bork but my reading of this paragraph would, of necessity, also deny the right of life to the aforementioned.

I think his reasoning here is faulty. I know I'm just a blue collar guy and he's Judge Bork but I call'em as I see'em.

Russell Kirk's statement (calling'em as he saw'em) about Bork, et.al "have not been learned in the natural law is one of the educational misfortunes of our age", may be the cause of his and others faulty reasoning on some issues.

S.C.O.T.U.S needs replacements such as Jay Sekulow, Matt Staver, Tom Jipping, that Coulter gal, and Judge Moore down in Bama.

There is no requirement for a judge to even be a lawyer in the first place. So, put Limbaugh in there with them.

You are absolutely correct, John. What Bork has asserted leaves out certain classes of individual humans who are addressed before the law anyway as human persons, though not human citizens. It would be instructive to note how a court deals with these 'non-persons' when they land in court or are confronted by law enforcement personnel ... their personage is assumed! This flies in the face of abortion rulings when applied to disenfranchised the unborn since the absence of definition before the law is in no way applied to disenfranchise the non-person illegal immigrant. What prevents the court from applying assumed personhood to the clearly alive, sensing unborn is 'convention' ... slaughter of the innocent is nothing but accepted convention, thus disenfranchisement again (as with slavery in the past) falls on tacit agreement to allow it regardless of morally or ethically right. It is a convention of twisted society in which we dwell ... and tacit acceptance leads directly to a norm, if exploitation may be profitable!

Soon, that twisted convention of disenfranchisement by tacit agreement will be applied to embryonic and fetal individual human beings, in order to legally exploit individual humans for their body parts ... cannibalism is about to be convention in our twisted, 'amoral' society.

"Thus, both the history and the texts of the two due process clauses demonstrate that they have nothing to do with the issue of abortion."

That's one of Bork's quirks, he's a literalist. The intent of the wording was to limit the amendments to cover Americans. At the time it was written abortion was not on the writer's mind. It's one of those things they would assume by virtue of their contemporary familiarity with motherhood and babies. Had someone brought up the idea of abortion, they would have extended it, because the 14th was written to protect the rights of those formerly excluded.

Well there are other sections of the Constitution, and then of course we have state laws. I think the framers assumed the states would have statutes in their criminal codes regarding murder of illegals or unnaturalized residents. These days, if they didn't, the 5th amendment would be invoked in a hurry. Don't mess with Bork when he is speaking within his area of expertise. JMO.