Are the Unborn Citizens?

Ex-Senator Rick Santorum was featured in a recent article posted on Yahoo News. I tried to post the following as a comment, but Yahoo wouldn’t let me:

QUOTE:       

The Fourteenth Amendment states: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States…No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States…”

Look at those first five words, and you’ll see that the unborn are not citizens. That’s the important part, at least constitutionally speaking. The question Santorum asks – Is that human life a person under the Constitution? – is irrelevant. What is relevant – again, constitutionally speaking – is whether the unborn are citizens. Which they are not.

Since the unborn aren’t citizens, they can’t trump the “privileges or immunities” of those who are. Laws which deny choice to women (who are citizens) contemplating abortion cannot be made or enforced since doing so (again, under Amendment XIV) would “abridge the privileges” (the right of a citizen to control his/her own body) in favor of a non-citizen who has no rights under the Constitution.

Sounds pretty awful to put it this way, but we are talking about the Constitution, right ex-Senator?

:UNQUOTE.

But taken to its extreme…

If my interpretation is taken to its extreme, abortion should be constitutionally permissible at any time during a pregnancy. Even on the day before natural birth, abortion should be legal. That would be pretty horrible, wouldn’t it? Or is there a way out? Perhaps we could look to the Ninth Amendment:

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

Perhaps one of these rights would be: The Right of Reasonable Expectation (a term of my own coinage, actually). To elaborate:

Maybe (just maybe) We-the-People have a reasonable right to be spared the spectacle of abortions the day before natural birth would have occurred.

This gets tricky because it could be argued that We-the-People have a right to live in a society in which abortions aren’t permissible on demand, as a form of birth control – not even during the first trimester. So…what do we do? Take a public opinion poll to determine what We feel is a Reasonable Expectation in this case, and recognize that as our constitutional standard? Do we repeat such a poll every five years, in case We change our mind?

Leave abortion standards up to the states?

Some Americans argue that each state should be allowed to determine under what (if any) circumstances abortions should be legal within their borders. Suppose 49 out of 50 states decide to totally illegalize abortion. Practically speaking, well-to-do women could simply go to that 50^th state to exercise choice. Wouldn’t that discriminate against poorer women who would find it hard to find the resources to make the trip themselves? To put a finer point on this debate, if abortion were to be completely illegal in the US, wealthy women could travel abroad for a procedure. What should we do in that case? Insist that any woman traveling abroad be given a pregnancy test – and insist she damn well better still be pregnant upon reentering the States?

Oh, that’ll go over big with the Tea Party!

 

Time to rewrite the US Constitution

These abortion-related issues represent only one area in which our Constitution is truly negligent or lacking in appropriate coverage. How much longer will the Supreme Court try to inject meaning into archaic language by means of lengthy and convoluted reasonings? Wouldn’t it be easier to simply write a new Law of the Land in plain and accessible modern English? A host of issues could be resolved, including a constitutional ban on the filibuster – which no one seems to have the courage to tackle. What about banning (or severely limiting the operating rules of) political parties – since the Dem/Pub axis has so thoroughly undermined what our Founding Fathers had in mind?

And what about the Second Amendment, which says:

“A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”

The Second has the distinction of being the only amendment which not only states a “right” but gives the reason for it. If the reason is no longer valid, then the right should no longer be valid. To wit: It is no longer “necessary” to the security of a free state to have a well regulated militia. With the USA having the largest and best-equipped regular military forces in the world, state militias are no longer “necessary.” Not to mention: Gone are the days when state militias were deemed “necessary” in order to put down slave rebellions.

In short? Our Constitution is a mess that needs to be replaced – not merely amended. Let me at it! Let's do this!

 

Steven Searle for US President in 2012

Founder of The Independent Contractors’ Party

“People who insist our Constitution shouldn’t be tampered with are afraid of what We-the-People might come up with. Which says a lot more (that is negative) about those People than about We-the-People” - Steve