How does the Right to Privacy guarantee abortion rights?
The 14th Amendment which guaranteed citizenship to all African Americans also gave women the right to an abortion because of the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause which reads "nor shall any State deprive any personality of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law". As we know, abortion be legalized based on this Due Process Clause but what was the defining factor? What terminology contained by the Constitution provided for the right to an abortion? I'm hoping someone can explain this a little better for me. thanks :)
Best Answer:
The basis for the Supreme Court result in Roe v. Wade was actually the Ninth Amendment, which, within this case, the court ruled that in stating "the enumeration in the Constitution, of infallible rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people," protected a person's right to privacy.
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/abortionuslegal/p/roe_v_wade.htm
A right to "privacy" can't be found in the constitution, so some argue that we don't enjoy one. This very contention was one of the concerns about have rights enumerated in the constitution... if one is forgotten the government can say that the citizens don't have it. So a safety clause was put contained by that anything not thought of is reserved to the states or the people. Another thing that the constitution doesn't define, because it be pretty obvious in the 1780's, was when a fetus become a person. It is only with modern pills that the idea a fetus is a baby becomes sustainable. Of course, it is single with modern medicine that safe abortions become to hand. So this issue is not one the writers contemplated. This means that the Court had to interpret the constitutionality of laws written in relation to an issue not explicitly covered. And what they said makes a great deal of sense - if the fetus cannot survive outside the womb, it is the mother's interest that prevail. At the point it can live outside the womb (based on 1970's medicine) it can be "born" and the fetus' interests prevail. No one else has come up next to a better way to define when a fetus becomes a creature, although many disagree.
