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Excuse me. Where in the Constitution does it say "The right of a woman to have an abortion shall not be infringed"?

Oh wait! It doesn't...

Extrapolation of the 14th amendment (among others) to create a "right" to an abortion is exactly you "thinking" it's a right. No. 6 judges decided it was a right and today many people assume it must be (cause those 6 judges sitting on the bench 35 years ago said it one time in one decision).


That's not the way our system is supposed to work. If it's such a clear right. If everyone knows it's a right. And if everyone agrees that it's a right. Then why not actually write up an amendment, pass it, and ratify it?

This hasn't happened because we know it wouldn't pass, much less be ratified. Which means that "the people" don't think it's a right. Nope. Just a handful of judges and the nutjobs who've followed them.

That's why Roe v. Wade was such a bad ruling. It bypassed the proper process for this. It robbed us of a true debate on the issue. Because of that decision, people like you simply assume that abortion is a right and that's the end of the debate. Kinda silly, isn't it? You believe in a right that most people don't agree with. But 6 judges said so, so it must be true...


Oh. And Flea? I thought women were the majority sex in this country? Funny that...

Huh? Our system is supposed to work by having 6 guys in black robes tell us what the laws are? Strange. That's not how I remember it...



Sigh. False dilemma.

The system was created on the assumption that the Federal government only needed to enumerate the "rights" that were seen as so important that they had to be applied at the federal level and to all people and states. See. That's why it has to pass by 2/3rds majority in Congress (who's members are representatives of every district and state in the country), and then ratified by 3/4ths of the states. They're important. So important that we really ought to make sure we get them right and not just make things into rights because we think they should be.

Anything not meeting those requirements passes to the states to decide.


Children learn this in school Smash. How is it you don't know this?

Sigh. False dilemma.

No. Your moronic argument that because the Constitution doesn't explicitly say "The right of a woman to have an abortion shall not be infringed" that it is therefore not protected makes it a valid response.

See, a FALSE dilemma, idiot, would require the distortion of a rational argument. When the argument itself is laughable beyond reason, it doesn't meet the standard.


If it's not there, then it's not a constitutional right.

No, moron, that's not how it works. The way it works, braindead, is that the Supreme Court decides when laws infringe on any of the rights. It's not required for specific individual actions to be enumerated. It's not required to pass an amendment stating that you can't pass a law against people blinking more than 8 times on Wednesdays.

Um... Demea? The tenth amendment says this:



In other words, the states get to pass laws on things like whether abortion should be legal and to what degree it is. If neither the federal, nor state, nor local governments hold power over something, *then* it passes "to the people".

So. You get to decide the rules for your local club, since no level of government has specific power in that area. See how that works? It doesn't mean that if it's not written somewhere at the federal level, that it can't be legislated at the state level. Which is what you seemed to be implying...




Yes. Like the assumption that the only alternative to assuming abortion is a right even though it's not written into the constitution is to require that all legal actions be written as amendments (your 6500000 amendments argument).

I'll also point out that your argument assumes that everything that is a legally allowed action must also be a right. That's where we differ. I believe that there are lots of things that I may legally do, but that aren't constitutional rights. Like skydiving. Sure. It's not illegal, but I don't have a constitutional right to do it. If the state I'm in decides to make skydiving illegal, they're not violating my constitutional rights. I should not take my case to the supreme court, but should deal with it at the state level.

Get it? Not everything is a right. Most actions are legal or illegal based on the decision of the local/state legislatures..



Yes. That's exactly how it works. How can something be a constitutional right if it's not written anywhere in the constitution?




Yup. But they don't decide what those rights are. Congress does. See how this is a separation of powers issue? The Supreme Court should not invent new rights just so they can support a ruling they want to make on an issue. That's a violation of their purpose and power.





Correct. However, they have to actually "fit" under some existing constitutionally defined "right". So "blinking" being a natural action as part of human life can't be made illegal, not because "blinking" is a right, but because banning blinking would violate an existing right (rights to life and liberty specifically. 5th amendments probably in there as well as others).

But let's be clear though. That's not to say that a state couldn't pass a law restricting blinking in some way. Say, during a state sponsored staring contest (whatever). Any restriction on blinking that didn't infringe on someone's life, liberty, etc would not violate their constitutional rights.

That's the point here, just because something *can* fall under an existing right, does not mean that thing itself becomes a right, much less a constitutional right. We can argue that having an abortion can be protected act because restricting it in some specific case may deprive someone of a right that is enumerated in the constitution. However, that doesn't make "abortion" a right. Nor does it mean that it's unconstitutional to limit it in other ways.

When extrapolating like that, the unconstitutionality only exists as it pertains to the actual Constitutional right in question. It's not magically conferred onto the new thing and all applications of that new thing (abortion in this case).

That's why Roe v. Wade was such a horrible ruling. Because such rulings are supposed to be made with a specific context/case in mind. So, under these specific situations, the court finds that limiting actionA constitutes a violation of rightB. What Roe v. Wade did was speak for *all* abortions, at all points within a pregnancy, and in the context of all laws, and declared them all to be violations of a womans right to liberty, equal protection under the law, and a few others that were pretty impressive stretches for the court.


That's not ruling on a case, it's writing law. And that's what the legislature is supposed to do, not the judiciary.

Edited, Feb 7th 2008 5:54pm by gbaji