The Supreme Court has disgraced the institution. Intellectual dishonesty. Alito’s draft opinion holds, Roe and Casey must be overturned. Alito says they were egregiously decided without a Constitutional basis. He argues abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution, and by overturning those cases he is also saying there is no Constitutional right to privacy. Both Roe and Casey depended in part on the right of privacy, derived from the 9th Amendment and the Due Process clause of the 14th Amendment. The 9th provides that “ The enumeration of certain rights should not be construed as denying or disparaging others retained by the people.” What are those other rights ? How about contraceptives? This was the issue in Griswold v. Connecticut, 1965, could the state prohibit the sale of condoms ? Relying on the 9th, the Court said no, recognizing that “ privacy “ was one of those “ other rights retained by the people.
THE HYPOCRISY
Alito joined in the majority opinion in the Heller case. That case held a private individual has a Constitutional right to posses a semi automatic handgun in the house. The case rested its decision on “ self defense “ even though self defense , like abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution. There is a rule of judicial construction when analyzing words, they are to be given their plain and ordinary meaning. And the words of the 2nd Amendment, by their plain and ordinary meaning, confers the right to bear arms, in order to have a “well regulated militia.” These issues, absence of self defense in the Constitution, and ignoring the plain meaning of the 2nd Amendment didn’t seem to bother Alito when he supported Heller. But now when the issue is a woman’s right to choose, he employs an “ originalist/ textualist approach. I suspect his real reason is not based on a Constitutional basis but on a religious belief that life begins at conception. A personal religious belief that has no place in Supreme Court decisions.
(Retired Legal eagle) William Collins
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