Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia Again Says Abortion Right Nonexistent

Bristol, RI (LifeNews.com) -- Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia continues to educate the law students of America and, once again, presented his explanation that no right to abortion exists in the Constitution to students at Roger Williams University. Last month, Scalia told students at the University of Central Missouri the same thing.

Scalia said a legal right to an abortion is not found in the document that guides our judicial process.

If abortion advocates wanted to create a legitimate abortion right, they should rely on passing laws in the legislature rather than asking courts to unilaterally create one, he said.

“You want the right to abortion? Create it the way most rights are created in a democracy. Persuade your fellow citizens it's a good idea — and pass a law,” Scalia said.

As he has before, Justice Scalia, who pro-life advocates hope will someday be one of the five votes on the high court to reverse Roe v. Wade, said the Constitution is not a living document that changes with the times.

According to a report in The Day newspaper, Scalia told the RWU law school students he didn't think the Senate would confirm him today as it did on a 98-0 vote decades ago.

“The most important thing is whether this person will write the new Constitution that you like,” Scalia said of today's politicized confirmation process. “If the court's rewriting the Constitution, it's an enormously powerful political body -- and its selection will be done in a political fashion."

In his speech last month, Scalia made the same point that the so-called right to abortion is nowhere found in the guiding document.

"The reality is the Constitution doesn't address the subject at all," Scalia said of abortion. "It is one of the many subjects not in the Constitution which is therefore left to democracy."

"If you want the right to an abortion, persuade your fellow citizens it’s a good idea and pass a law. If you feel the other way, repeal the law," he said.

During the speech, Scalia also rejected the idea that the Supreme Court is bound by precedent -- such as in the Dred Scott or Roe v. Wade cases.

"For me, perhaps most important of all, does the precedent allow me to function as a lawyer, which is what a judge is supposed to do?" he asked.

Scalia comes down against politicized confirmations....AND recognizes that that is what we, in fact, have today.

I wonder if he would agree with tenured or elected Scotus justices?

Who was the freeper arguing this with us the other day?

"Seems that abortion should be at the very most under state control, not federal."

The abortion issue is tied up with the definition of legal person, i.e. who is a legal person and who is protected by the Constitution.

If a fetus is a legal person then it should be protected by the Constitution as much as a fully grown person.

One would think that something as basic as the definition of who it is protecting would need to be decided at the federal level. After all, slavery was allowed to continue in the South because the southern states had a different definition of who was a person, i.e. blacks are property not persons.

Unfortunately the legal persons that the Consitution originally referred to were white property-owning males.

Now we are left with a conundrum: either we agree that the Constitution has "grown" to include women and blacks and non-property owners and now potentially fetuses, or we believe that somehow the founding fathers meant all along to cover everyone but couldn't say it at the time.

If the Constitution can "grow" then it can "grow" to find abortion acceptable. If the founding fathers hid things in the Consitution then it is open to endless interpretation of what other stuff they might have hidden, such as that abortion is acceptable.

The toleration of slavery and sexism at the time of the writing of the Constitution has caused it to be fatally flawed.

We need to add an amendment to the Constitution that clearly defines who it is that is being defended by it. This amendment needs to make it clear that fetuses are to be considered citizens, children of people here illegally are not, etc.

The fact that this will never happen means that we are doomed to live in a fuzzy world where nothing is ever completely true or just. What is true will be what a majority of activists say is true. When liberal activists are in power they will grow the government. When conservative activists are in power they will merely slow the growth of government.

In the long run we will become a socialist dictatorship ... but at least we'll all be able to have abortions whenever we want ... so long as the government hasn't instituted a pro-natalist policy.

And he knows that this will NEVER happen.

It most certainly would happen in most, perhaps all, blue states. Overturning Roe vs. Wade means that pre-existing state law takes over, and at least one state I know of (WA) passed an initiative to liberalize its on-the-books abortion law in the eventuality that an overturn occurred.

However, much, perhaps most, of the country would not liberalize abortion to the extent that it exists today. Frankly, during an election year, I'd prefer that Scalia remain silent about abortion except if he's part of a binding decision on the subject.

“.. it’s NOT in the Bill of Rights, and i’m hard pressed to find it in the Constitution, so... i guess he’s right.”

Scalia is being a little disingenuous with this argument that if it’s not specifically listed in the Constitution, that our founders didn’t believe it deserved to be protected. That why they had the 9th and 10th Amendments:

Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

I don’t believe that a right to an abortion is contemplated here, but it is only those who wish to expand the powers of the government far beyond the imaginings of our founders who would declare that if it is not specifically listed in the Bill of Rights, we have no right at all to protection by the Courts. For instance, the right to make love to your spouse is not spelled out in the Constitution—does this mean that Congress can constitutionally prohibit this behavior?

My bit on abortion:

Abortion is THE quintessential liberal issue.

Liberalism is about using force to make the innocent and responsible pay for the consequences of the behavior of the irresponsible and guilty.
Liberalism only supports ONE freedom - sexual, stick your jubblies wherever without consequences.

Abortion makes THE most innocent life die to pay for the consequences of irresponsible sexual behaviors.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.