Harvard Law Journal Concludes Unborn Babies Have Constitutional Rights

Townhall ^ | May 30, 2017 | Cortney O'Brien

[boatbums]

The Fourteenth Amendment, which was adopted in 1868, declares that no state shall “deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.” A debate that has been raging in courtrooms for years is whether the “life” part includes unborn persons.

Harvard Law student Joshua Craddock did some constitutional soul searching to answer that question in a new report for the Harvard Law Journal, concluding that unborn babies do fall under the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections.

One might look to dictionaries of legal and common usage, the context of the English common law tradition, and cases that attempted to construe the meaning of the text in a manner consistent with original meaning. Using this methodology, it is reasonable to construe the Fourteenth Amendment to include prenatal life. The structure of the argument is simple: The Fourteenth Amendment’s use of the word “person” guarantees due process and equal protection to all members of the human species. The preborn are members of the human species from the moment of fertilization. Therefore, the Fourteenth Amendment protects the preborn. If one concedes the minor premise (that preborn humans are members of the human species), all that must be demonstrated is that the term “person,” in its original public meaning at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, applied to all members of the human species.

In addition to using language to prove his point, Craddock puts his conclusions in context, noting that at the time the Fourteenth Amendment was written, several states called the unborn person a “child” in their anti-abortion laws. Moreover, The Stream notes, in 1859, the American Medical Association mandated that the government must protect the “independent and actual existence of the child before birth.”

Using this logic, Craddock notes, the Supreme Court justices were flawed in their 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which granted the right to abortion. When he wrote the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun failed to properly assess the word “person” as it was applied in 1868, Craddock argues.

Will the Supreme Court consider the Fourteenth Amendment in future cases dealing with abortion?

[boatbums]

I recall Obama, when he was campaigning for the presidency, stated that agreeing to the statement that the unborn baby is a person was "outside his paygrade". Yet, he claimed he was a "constitutional scholar" and professor.

The justices that decided for abortion "rights", refused to even consider that the unborn child was entitled to the right to life and Blackmun stated the science wasn't settled on that question. What a cop-out!

Now, 45 years and 50+ MILLION abortions later, will the Supreme Court finally get around to addressing the science that the human life begins at fertilization - something that they HAVE known for much longer than that - and do what is right and just or will they continue to succumb to the pressure of society that demands killing unborn children is a right ABOVE the child's right to live?

[Just mythoughts]

I wonder IF the souls of the unborn pass by ol Harry Blackmun when they return to the Maker?

[joshua c]

I have used that argument with abortion advocates. If life does not begin at conception, what physical act happens after conception that starts the baby’s life?

They never have an answer.

[allendale]

Forget the law. The bottom line in abortion is that a woman has decided to kill her own conception. A pre born human life is killed. The ramifications for the woman, the culture and the human species are profound and terrible. Those who mold their conscience to acquiesce to this unrestricted killing of human life are capable of justifying or committing any vile action. A “pro choice” person should never be trusted in any matter of importance.

[cpforlife.org]

PreBorn lives matter

Please FreepMail me if you want on or off my Pro-Life Ping List.

[Slyfox]

Progressive liberals have no concept biological reality.

[Salvation]

**Using this logic, Craddock notes, the Supreme Court justices were flawed in their 1973 ruling in Roe v. Wade, which granted the right to abortion. When he wrote the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun failed to properly assess the word “person” as it was applied in 1868, Craddock argues. **

Wow! We’ll have to watch and see what happens.

[onedoug]

That’s why they’re champions of death, unless its their own.

[TChad]

They never have an answer.

The Personhood Fairy touches the bunch of cells with her magic wand, making the cells glow briefly. After that the cells are a person.

[boatbums]

They never have an answer because they know the truth will make their argument sound ridiculous. When the egg merges with the sperm cell, a brand new, never existed before, human life begins. All that is needed from that moment on is contained within the DNA of that fertilized egg with the exception of nutrients and time. If you could take that zygote -

A zygote, is a eukaryotic cell formed by a fertilization event between two gametes. The zygote's genome is a combination of the DNA in each gamete, and contains all of the genetic information necessary to form a new individual. In multicellular organisms, the zygote is the earliest developmental stage.

- and transplant it from the mother into another woman's uterus, it would STILL be the offspring of the original mother and father. It is truly a miraculous thing!

[boatbums]

I think they are spared from that horror but I hope he sees them.

[boatbums]

I won't argue with that! If someone cannot comprehend that the right to life supersedes ALL other rights, then how can they be trusted to make decisions that affect all our lives?

[Just mythoughts]

Well, the ‘rich’ man from ill-gotten gains could certainly see Lazarus in Abraham's bosom ... so perhaps these that were judged to be without ‘rights’ might not need to be reminded of the evil they were put through... I cannot say for sure, other than there will be an accounting.. someday...

[boatbums]

It will take people willing to fight for what is right and not back down from all the fiery darts that will be shot at them from all sides. What I cannot understand is how ANYONE who claims to be a believer in God can excuse, ignore or rationalize the wholesale slaughter of innocent human lives. It takes an insipid kind of blindness.

[cpforlife.org]

When he wrote the majority opinion, Justice Harry Blackmun failed to properly assess the word “person” as it was applied in 1868, Craddock argues.

Not quite. Harry Blackmun purposely ignored the word “person” as it was applied in 1868. Blackmun simply wanted to "legalize" the killing of children before birth and did not care about the truth or the consequences.

My hope and prayer is that President Trump will appoint enough justices to SCOTUS to overturn Roe. And for a bigger miracle: one day a pro-life amendment to the COTUS.

Here's Bork:

“Blackmun invented a right to abortion....Roe had nothing whatever to do with constitutional interpretation. The utter emptiness of the opinion has been demonstrated time and again, but that, too, is irrelevant. The decision and its later reaffirmations simply enforce the cultural prejudices of a particular class in American society, nothing more and nothing less. For that reason, Roe is impervious to logical or historical argument; it is what some people, including a majority of the Justices, want, and that is that.

Roe should be overruled and the issue of abortion returned to the moral sense and the democratic choice of the American people. Abortions are killings by private persons. Science and rational demonstration prove that a human exists from the moment of conception. Scalia is quite right that the Constitution has nothing to say about abortion.
--Robert H. Bork
Constitutional Persons: An Exchange on Abortion
Robert H. Bork is a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.

[boatbums]

The Personhood Fairy touches the bunch of cells with her magic wand, making the cells glow briefly. After that the cells are a person.

Must be. Then I guess that Personhood Fairy is an "indian giver" who will take BACK the personhood glow if the baby is marked for death and "it's" not a person anymore. Odd how excited parents-to-be are when they see the first ultrasound of their "baby" but, if an abortion is going to happen, it's now just a "fetus", "blob of tissue", "the products of conception", "the pregnancy" or any other euphemisms they can conjure up. It's pretty sad.

[boatbums]

My hope and prayer is that President Trump will appoint enough justices to SCOTUS to overturn Roe. And for a bigger miracle: one day a pro-life amendment to the COTUS.

That is my prayer as well. I also pray that one day abortion won't even HAVE TO be outlawed, because it will be UNTHINKABLE.

[boatbums]

Robert Bork would have made such an excellent Supreme Court Justice!

[TChad]

It's pretty sad.

And shockingly dishonest and brutal.

[Wildbill22]

Exactly!

The thing that amazes me is how some sort of right to a woman’s body in her convenience and excuse from responsibility with what she did with her body trumps the right to life of the baby that results.