[Sun]

From your other post:

“To begin with, since the federal Constitution says nothing about abortion, the 10th A. automatically reserves government power to address abortion to the state governments.”

While I believe in states’ rights, I don’t believe that abortion should be allowed in one state, but not another state - just like slavery should not.

What about the 5th amendment?

Amendment V

“..nor be
deprived of LIFE (emphasis mine), liberty, ..”

[Amendment10]

I appreciate what you are suggesting about Amendment V. But personally, I cannot accept that constitutional lawmakers had things like abortion in mind as they drafted Amendment V. In fact, note that Sec. 1 of the 14th A. guarantees constitutional protections to those people born in the USA as opposed to people conceived here.

On the other hand...

As someone else in cyberspace has pointed out, not only is the word "Posterity" as used in the Preamble to the Constitution a reference to future generations of people, but have your considered the following from my posts?

Given that the USSC thought that it had the license to use Jefferson's "wall of separation" from a mere, private letter help justify its scandalous interpretation of the scope of the establishment clause in the Everson opinion, surely the Court should have used Jefferson's "all men are created equal" from the Declaration of Independence to help justify finding the rights of unborn children in the 9th Amendment. After, all, Jefferson could just have easily written that all men are born equal. Instead, Jefferson evidently reflected the beliefs of the signers of the DoI that God-given rights start from the moment of conception.

And not only did the USSC fail to weigh the 9th A. protected rights of unborn children against the right to have an abortion, the Court also "overlooked" the 9th A. protected right of a man to be a father.

[Amendment10]

It was late when I replied to your post and I didn't say what I wanted to say.

The reason that I identify myself with the 10th A. is because the USSC has arguably been ignoring the 10th A. since the days of FDR. Otherwise, I am not a state power freak but actually a respect the Constitution freak.

Where abortion is concerned, given that the federal Constitution doesn't reasonably enumerate abortion as a federal power issue, abortion remains a state power issue. However, I have no major problems if the states choose to exercise their Article V power to amend the Constitution to make abortion a federal power issue.

My one reservation with doing so, however, is the idea that a later generation of renegade justices will find a way to pervert such an amendment as they have managed to do with existing amendments.