Here's from the transcripts of interviews conducted with the candidates for the Vice-Presidency as posted on the CBS Evening News website:
Katie Couric: Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good decision?
Joe Biden: Because it's as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours. What does it say? It says in the first three months that decision should be left to the woman. And the second three months, where Roe v. Wade says, well then the state, the government has a role, along with the women's health, they have a right to have some impact on that. And the third three months they say the weight of the government's input is on the fetus being carried. And so that's sort of reflected as close as anybody is ever going to get in this heterogeneous, this multicultural society of religious people as to some sort of, not consensus, but as close it gets. I think the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment … offers a right to privacy. Now that's one of the big debates that I have with my conservative scholar friends, that they say, you know, unless a right is enumerated - unless it's actually, unless [it] uses the word "privacy" in the Constitution - then no such "constitutional right" exists. Well, I think people have an inherent right.
Couric: Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?
Sarah Palin: I think it should be a states' issue not a federal government-mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I'm, in that sense, a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it's no secret that I'm pro-life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that's what I would like to see, um, further embraced by America.
Couric: Do you think there's an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?
Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.
Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.
Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.
Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?
Palin: Well, let's see. There's, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …
Couric: Can you think of any?
Palin: Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I'm so privileged to serve, wouldn't be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.
O.M.F.G. Are you serious? Just look at the answers they come up with to the same question side-by side. It should tell you a lot. It should tell you all you need to know.
A few days ago I posted a Falin quote which struck me as so far off base that I just re-printed it verbatim and made no comment at all. The post was titled "Speechless", because that's how it left me. It turned out to be the same quote that Saturday Night Live ran with word-for-word in their Tina Fey sketch last weekend.
This is more of the same.
It's like one of the commentators over at Wonkette said: "I think she spoke how cats think."
Enjoy the debate tonight!
Reflecting on Richard Hauptmann
2 years ago
.JPG)
2 comments:
Someone should help Ms. Palin with the word, "consensus".
"...that's never going to be absolute consensus by every American."
?!!?*&%!??
WTF
Oh, good Lord, where to begin?
Biden’s answer is good, but it’s somewhat bollixed up. Roe makes it clear that the decision whether to have an abortion – or not – falls within the ambit of a broader, constitutionally mandated right to privacy; so it’s not simply a right to have abortions – it’s a right to privacy that encompasses the right to control one’s own body and make critical medical decisions like whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term. He’s correct when he says that right is essentially absolute during the first trimester, but I think his explanation of that right during the second and third trimesters is somewhat lacking. The right to make such critical medical decisions extends unabated through the second trimester, except that the government has limited power to make and enforce regulations designed to protect the health of the woman. It’s only in the third trimester that the woman’s right to privacy is trumped by the government’s “compelling interest” in protecting the fetus, because it’s at that point that legal personhood is deemed to attach to the fetus. At that point, the government can, if it chooses, intervene to protect the fetus.
The distinction is important, because the government’s role in abortion is very circumscribed under Roe v. Wade: It can only regulate the procedure to protect the woman’s health from the second trimester on, and it can only intervene to prevent abortions in the third trimester. Why is that important? Because under the construct in Roe v. Wade the government will never have the power to force any woman to have an abortion. That’s something the right-to-lifers conveniently overlook. By characterizing the issue as a fundamental right to privacy that can only be overcome at such time as the government has a compelling interest in protecting a viable fetus – and for that purpose only – the Roe decision deprives the government of ever having the power to mandate abortions. So the government’s power is a one-way street under Roe. When it has the power to intervene in the abortion decision, that power is limited to preventing, not compelling, abortion (and then, only in the third trimester).
Finally, Biden could have made the argument about enumerated rights more forcefully. There are, indeed, people who contend that the only rights that exist under the Constitution are those which are specifically laid out in the first eight amendments. But those folks apparently don’t know how to read, because the Ninth Amendment specifically states that “[t]he enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s the beginning and the end of the “enumerated rights” argument. It’s a non-starter, because the Constitution says so.
Now let’s look at Sister Sarah’s argument. Or, shall I say “argument.” While she says she believes the Constitution protects the right to privacy, she says that “individual states can best handle” the issue of what privacy rights the people are entitled to. In other words, it’s no right at all – it’s completely up to the whim of the various state governments. More to the point, she says the same thing about Roe: It was wrongly decided because there should be no Constitutional right to abortion, but the issue should be left up to the states. But again, that guts the entire meaning of Roe. If we simply leave it up to the states, we’re saying that the right to privacy does not encompass the right to make the decision whether or not to have an abortion. Which means government gets to decide whether women can or can’t – or should or shouldn’t – have abortions. If the government has that power; if it’s no longer a decision that falls within the constitutionally protected right to privacy … then the government’s power to interfere with the decision isn’t circumscribed by its compelling interest to protect the fetus. If the abortion decision isn’t part of the right to privacy, then there is nothing limiting the government’s power to decide whether any particular woman should or shouldn’t have an abortion.
Which means that the government has the right to compel women to have abortions if it so chooses.
Oh, but that would never happen, right? Sure, just like the United States would never commit torture, start wars without any conceivable justification, listen in on your telephone calls, read your e-mails, suspend the right of habeas corpus, argue that the president’s “war powers” trump the Bill of Rights and the Geneva Conventions …. Yup. That’s right. It could never happen.
Post a Comment