Opinions on Roe V. Wade?

This is incorrect.

The original decision regarding Roe v. Wade had to do with a person's right to medical privacy and that such privacy (and therefore, the act of receiving an abortion itself) was protected under the 9th Amendment as an "unenumerated right". The amendment reads: "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." It's basically saying that there are other rights that have not been listed by the US Constitution that people have, so we shouldn't ever make the argument that something isn't a right simply because it's not in the US Constitution.

There are a great many things that we take for granted as rights today that are not listed as rights in the US Constitution, such as the aforementioned right to privacy (medical or otherwise), the right to marriage (like, at all), the right to a jury of our peers, the right to a fair trial, etc. Now, many Originalists (which pretty much all of the conservative SCOTUS justices are) have made the argument that any right that has a history of tradition within the context of America should be included within that blanket statement of "unenumerated rights" and that the converse is also true: that if a supposed right does not have a history of established tradition in America then it shouldn't be taken for granted. This would then include things like marriage (between a man and woman of the same race, at least) and at least some privacy.

Now here's the interesting bit. According to English Common Law from the late 18th century (upon which a great deal of early American legal precedent was established), abortions were perfectly legal up until the "quickening", being the time at which you can feel movement of the fetus. So, in actuality, there was more tradition for abortion in early American jurisprudence than for, say, interracial marriage.

Other rights currently protected as "unenumerated" under the 9th amendment include the aforementioned interracial marriage (Loving v. Virginia), same-sex marriage (Obergefell v. Hodges), sex acts other than vaginal penetration (oral sex, anal sex, etc., even between consenting heterosexual adults, were outlawed under sodomy laws in many places until the 20th century - those laws were struck down as unconstitutional by Lawrence v. Texas), and access to contraception (Griswold v. Connecticut). By attacking the definition of unenumerated rights, the SCOTUS has thrown into question all of those decisions and more. Clarence Thomas said as much in his concurring opinion when he said that those cases should be "reconsidered" (though he curiously left out Loving v. Virginia).

/r/TrueChristian Thread Parent