Debra_Law wrote:
Roe was not decided in a vacuum. In case the obvious has escaped your observation, the Supreme Court relied upon and cited many decades worth of cases to substantiate the supreme law of the land that all fundamental rights comprised within the term liberty are protected by the Federal Constitution from invasion by the States. The Supreme Court relied upon and cited many decades worth of cases to substantiate the supreme law of the land that fundamental rights comprised within the term liberty include, but are not limited to, the right of the individual to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion into matters so fundamentally affecting a person as the decision whether to bear or beget a child.
Contrary to your assertion, Roe v. Wade was not decided in a vacuum.
I never asserted that
Roe was actually decided in a vacuum. I argued that
you defend it as if it were. My previous posts paid specific attention to its foundations (I explicitly cited the cases that
Roe was based upon), and so I find it disingenous for you to claim that they "escaped my observation." How can I write about cases that I didn't observe? Look back a few posts. Rather than me failing to observe anything, it appears that you have not responded to my observations. In fact, of all the caselaw cited in
Roe, I am the only person between us that has actually analyzed those cases in this thread. If you wish to put
Roe into the context of those cases, explain how I incorrectly distinguished those cases instead of citing the
Roe line as if
Roe could be based entirely upon itself. I look forward to your interpretations of
Griswold,
Loving,
Pierce, etc. I have already offered my interpretation of their limits. Rebut my arguments at your leisure.
Quote:Do you agree or not agree that all fundamental rights comprised within the term liberty are protected by the Federal Constitution from invasion by the States?
Whose interpretation of liberty (as if there could only be one)? And whose interpretation of "Due Process" that could lead to such a broad view on constitutionally protected liberty? I find an even greater weakness in your argument than your failure to examine caselaw; you have failed to examine the text of the Constitution itself. I'll therefore leave your
Roe tautology behind and give you a simple argument based on the text of the Constitution.
A strict reading of the text may, in fact, defeat all "Due Process" rights, although I have not gone that far in my previous posts (I would rather limit an expansive interpretation than destroy the whole thing). The "Due Process" clause of the 14th amendment says:
Quote:nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law
"
(my emphasis).
The second half of that clause explicitly modifies the first half. In other words, it is not an open ended prohibition of deprivation of life, liberty, or property; it is a mandate directed at "process," which means procedure. Thus, "substantive due process," which underlies
Roe, is an oxymoron (I am obviously not the first person to note this). It is only by expansive S. Ct. jurisprudence that any substantive rights have been found in that clause at all. To argue that such an expansive interpretation (that finds no explicit support in the text) is irrefutable, even by the Court, is quite a long leap for a Constitutional Democracy. And if you think that total discretion in the interpretation of Constitution will always increase the rights of the people, you must have forgotten about
Dred Scott and
Lochner. Be careful in your arguments about the irrefutable, self-supporting, jurisprudential "Law of the Land." We are fortunate that the Court has never taken such a stance on its own caselaw. Therefore, while I respect your interpretation of "liberty," you did not write the 14th Amendment (neither did Justice Blackmun). Its authors wrote a clause about "process."
