The "right to privacy" is a construct from a number of literal provisions providing the right in individuals to be secure in their person including the fourth, fifth, and fourteenth amendments among others. And I believe such a right is a reasonable extension of personal rights to freedom and liberty preserved by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The Constitutional question of abortion needs however to be addressed not only to the rights of the mother but also to the rights of the unborn child. The 14th Amendment provides that no person shall be deprived of life without due process of law. The factual question is when personhood begins. Although I strongly believe it is at conception, a court might well take extensive evidence on the question. But there is no doubt, as there was no doubt at common law, that an unborn child is entitled to protection of the law at some fairly early stage of pregnancy.
How the issue cuts as to Judge Roberts is not entirely clear. His testimony as a Court of Appeals nominee was properly that Supreme Court precident controls Appellate Court decisions. A Supreme Court Justice gets to decide the applicability and correctness of precident as a Constitutional application.
We presently have no idea how Roberts views the rights of the unborn child. Neither do we know where he stands on Second Amendment rights; or Property rights; or for that matter much of anything else. We do get a general idea that he thinks the federal government has some very broad powers to invade individual freedom and liberty without regard to what the Constitution says which in my view is bad.
Under circumstances where we have available some clear outstanding candidates, Luttig; Edith Jones, Janice Brown to name three; it is inexcusable that this administration has choosen to submit a nominee who is the same kind of blank slate David Souter was.
"The Senate's number two Democrat..."
More like "full of number two"...
So much for Democrats celebrating "diversity".