Posted on 04/25/2008 4:56:03 AM PDT by Caleb1411
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, in a CBS News interview that will air on Sunday, says the Constitution neither allows legal abortions nor does it prohibit them. Scalia has been outspoken recently about how the Constitution does not guarantee any abortion rights.
During the "60 Minutes" interview with correspondent Lesley Stahl, Scalia said the Constitution is silent on the issue of abortion.
He said he favors overturning Roe v. Wade, which has ushered in 35 years of unlimited abortions, but says states aren't forced to ban abortions if the case is reversed.
"On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were ... trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion," Scalia said.
"And you're against that?" Stahl asked to clarify his remarks.
Scalia replied, "Of course. There's nothing" in the Constitution supporting the view.
Earlier this month, Scalia told students at Roger Williams University in Rhode Island that the so-called right to abortion is not found in the Constitution.
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.
Last month, Scalia made the same point in a speech at the University of Central Missouri.
"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.
The last thing we need is for the country to be geographically polarized. That's what leads to civil wars.
That sounds like an argument against the republic.
State's right to do what?
True. Suppose a majority of my fellow citizens think it's a good idea that they have the right to be safe from gun owners? Is Justice Scalia saying that they can pass a law and end gun ownership? If it's as easy as that then what do we need the Supreme Court for?
Watching FReepers try to out-think Scalia is like watching a cat try to out-swim a dolphin.
The matter has to come before the court in a different form and it will. It will supercede Roe vs Wade. I believe Scalia is being very discrete and rightly so.
Although that deals with the government taking a life, not an individual.
The individual’s ability to take a life legally has been generally left to the legislative branch to define. For example, whether you can take your own life, and what constitutes self-defense.
Like how now in some states you can kill someone if they are in your house, and in other states you do not have that right.
Nothing like FReeper arrogance.
He’s exactly right.
“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,”
Well Justice Scalia, there is this funny part of the Constitution that says that
“The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
Which is to say the Scalia makes a common error in supposing that the only rights which the Constitution protects are those which are enumerated. Personally, I’d be much happier if we actually did protect the enumerated rights, because we certainly don’t now. Americans should have many more “rights” than we do now, though not all are “Federal.”
It is a sad but true fact that most of the “so-called” conservatives on the Supreme Court and other parts of the Federal bench ignore the 9th (and 10th for that matter) Amendments and routinely get away with it. Mainly because we the people, let them.
As for abortion, its a state matter, not a Federal one, and no imaginary construction of the Constitution or medical fact properly makes it one. The simple way to tell this is to examine the abortion laws of the early Republic. As a matter of common law which we inherited from England at the Revolution, abortion was illegal anytime after quickening — when the movements of the fetus could first be felt by the woman, or about the 4th month. Not until the 1820s or so did states pass anti-abortion laws in the US.
It is hard to have the discussion without using the term “right” when talking about what someone has the right to do.
The law defines what you have the right to do, and what you don’t have the right to do. The law is not the source of your “rights”. In the first case, the word “right” is really a shorthand for “what you are legally ALLOWED to do”, although even in that phrasing there is a tendency to say you have a “legal right” to do something, rather than saying “you are legally allowed” to do something.
Thanks so much for the ping ... this thread might be interesting to follow! Establishing ‘personhood’ seems to still be the key to stopping abortion on demand.
Democrats can't do that. They'd rarely get anything past the voters which is why they have to rely on radical judges to get their agenda accomplished.
> What the Constitution DOES entitle one to is life...and once it begins...termination via abortion becomes murder <
Yes, but the the Founders’ original intent and their original understanding of the Constitution was that murder is jurisdictionally a matter for the STATES to define and punish.
Therefore, I submit that the originalist postion should be the following:
The Federal Government should not be involved in defining and punishing murders except for those cases that occur on Federal property or in the Territories, or cases where a murder is committed by a Federal employee while on official duty, or cases where it can be shown that a Federal employee has been murdered “because of” his official duties.
Essentially, you are advocating part of Robert Bork’s position that got his nomination to the SCOTUS killed and introduced the verb “borked”.
Bork believes that the SCOTUS is ruling on cases that they should refer to the Congress because there is no body of legal precedent on which to base a ruling, nor is there a provision in the Constitution for many of the Court’s rulings. This led to his declaration (absolutely true) that the rulings by the Court amount to “legislating from the bench”.
Your argument that Roe v. Wade should be handed down to the states to determine is the correct one. There was NOTHING at the federal level covering abortion until Roe v. Wade and the Court should NEVER have agreed to hear the case.
Unfortunately, too many Americans believe that the SCOTUS is the court of last resort as opposed to their state House or Senate rep. Not every case is a federal case and, until we wrest state’s rights back from the power grabbers at the federal level, the SCOTUS will never send a case to either Congress or a state legislature to decide. Roberts and Alito are a good beginning, but we need to have justices with the wherewithall to recognize when they are ruling on an issue that is really out of their jurisdiction.
This issue is just one more example of how badly broken our government is.
Great. Now I need to wash the coffee off my dog. ROTFLMAO
A majority of citizens couldn’t remove your gun rights, but an Article V amendmend could.
Although I hope this never happens, Article V is just as much a part of the Constitution as the 2nd Amendment is, and to say that the people can’t ever touch 2nd Amendment rights is just a damaging to the Constitution as to assert that there are no 2nd Amendment rights.
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