Roberts: "so called 'right to privacy"

[TexasTiger 13,053]

[Roberts] approvingly quoted from a dissenting opinion by Justice Hugo Black in a 1965 court decision, in which the majority held that a Connecticut law forbidding the use of contraceptives was unconstitutional. Black's opinion, as cited in the draft, complained that the court had used "a loose, flexible, uncontrolled standard for holding laws unconstitutional." The draft article said that "the broad range of rights which are now alleged to be 'fundamental' by litigants, with only the most tenuous connection the to Constitution, bears ample witness to the dangers of this doctrine."

. . .  A second memo, sent by Roberts to the attorney general on Dec. 11, 1981, summarized a lecture six years earlier by then- Solicitor General Erwin N. Griswold at Washington and Lee University, which touched on the same theme. Griswold's lecture, Roberts said, "devotes a section to the so-called 'right to privacy,' arguing as we have that such an amorphous right is not to be found in the Constitution. He specifically criticizes Roe v. Wade."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0201913_pf.html

[AURaptor 1,128]

Roberts prolly is on to something here. Abortion might have a legal foundation, but 'right to privacy' might not be its legitimate foundation.

[TexasTiger 13,053]

Roberts prolly is on to something here. Abortion might have a legal foundation, but 'right to privacy' might not be its legitimate foundation.

172319[/snapback]

Perhaps, but the Hugo Black dissent he cites was in a case that declared unconstitutional a law prohibiting married couples from using contraceptives. Most of us can probably agree that a state should not be able to outlaw contraceptive use by married people-- Scalia, Thomas, Bork, and perhaps Roberts, don't agree.

[AURaptor 1,128]

Roberts prolly is on to something here. Abortion might have a legal foundation, but 'right to privacy' might not be its legitimate foundation.

172319[/snapback]

Perhaps, but the Hugo Black dissent he cites was in a case that declared unconstitutional a law prohibiting married couples from using contraceptives. Most of us can probably agree that a state should not be able to outlaw contraceptive use by married people-- Scalia, Thomas, Bork, and perhaps Roberts, don't agree.

172323[/snapback]

And thus the eternal question continues to be batted around...at what point does a woman's individual rights intersect those of the child which shares her body....or potentially shares her body?

My Libertarian view is that this is a question which can only be answered by the woman, and the State should stay the heck out of the process. But at what point does the unborn get THEIR rights as an individual, and where should the State step in and protect those rights? After all, that is a primary function of a Gov't in a free society, to protect the rights of its citizens.

I got it! If we could some how keep abortion legal, but make the social stigma of HAVING one so reprehensible, that no woman would want to have one, unless as a last resort....oh. Never mind. We tried that already...... :huh: