Ted Rall is
worried about the likely confirmation of John Roberts:
Federal abortion rights are doomed. Liberals and feminists had might as well accept that. Pocket the TV ad budget and upgrade the website.
.....
In a sick way, the end of Roe v. Wade may turn out to be a net positive for America. For one thing, Roe was a legally dubious decision based on flawed constitutional logic. Rather than pass abortion rights into law, 14 cowardly congresses and seven weasely presidents have relied on the 1973 ruling to avoid taking political fire from the Bible-thumpers.
I, too, think it may be a net positive -- but only if we work to make it so. I have a modest proposal below...
Ask yourself this question: Why should the right to an abortion be subject to the personal preference of a single individual? Or, if you prefer, the preference of five individuals? To my mind there is no reason. The Supreme Court did not
grant the right to an abortion in
Roe v. Wade. The court recognized that such a right exists under the Constitution. (Let me also point out that the Constitution does not grant any rights to citizens -- it, too, recognizes that such rights already exist. This is why the Bill of Rights declares what government shall
not do, rather than what citizens may do.)
The reasoning behind Roe, of course, depends upon a constitutional right of privacy. Now, our fine conservative friends have been arguing for years that no such right is enumerated in the Constitution. And they are correct. Nowhere does it say "you have the right to privacy" or "Congress shall make no law curtailing the right of privacy."
And yet, if you look at all the rights recognized by the Constitution, as well as the writings of the individual Founders, it's pretty clear that the one thing they agreed on was the need to protect the individual from unwarranted government intrusion. After all, if government can't tell you what to print, what to say, what to read, or how to pray, and "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated" that pretty much adds up to a right of privacy.
But not if you're a Republican. It's rather like arguing that an animal with tusks, a trunk and large floppy ears doesn't have to be an elephant -- after all, walruses have tusks, tapirs have trunks and Prince Charles has large floppy ears.
There's an easy solution: Propose a Right to Privacy Amendment to the United States Constitution. Make it explicit. Put the language there that the GOP can't argue against.
Yes, I know that such an amendment will never reach the floor of the House or the Senate as long as they are controlled by the GOP. But maybe that can work to our advantage. Let 'em shoot it down -- put the Republicans on record as being against basic privacy. This, after all, is exactly what they have done with amendments prohibiting flag burning and gay marriage.
I keep hearing from thoughtful pundits and helpful Republicans that the Democratic party doesn't stand for anything. Here's a good place to start changing that. Most Americans would be surprised, I think, to learn that they don't have an explicit right to privacy. Most Americans favor privacy -- it's why they put locks on their bathroom doors. Talk about traditional values!
So let's stand for privacy. Let's fight for privacy. Let's fight for it fiercely and openly so that they have to oppose it just as fiercely.
Roberts will almost certainly be confirmed. Roe will almost certainly be overturned, or at the very least curtailed. Ted Rall: "...a party-line overturning of Roe would validate years of liberal prophecies that the right plans to take away our freedoms." The Democrats need to be ready for that, ready to declare those freedoms explicit and inviolable and beyond the shifting winds of partisan politics. A Right to Privacy Amendment would accomplish that.