Supreme Court Jutice Anton Scalia in an interview to be televised this week stated that he would reverse Roe v. Wade and whats more, the Constitution in itself does not prohibit or permit abortion. Scalia states that on a personal level he is anti-abortion and feels it should be banned by the states but it is simply not something that the federal government should be involved in.

“On the abortion thing, for example, if indeed I were … trying to impose my own views, I would not only be opposed to Roe versus Wade, I would be in favor of the opposite view, which the anti-abortion people would like to see adopted, which is to interpret the Constitution to mean that a state must prohibit abortion,” Scalia told correspondent Lesley Stahl.

It is neither surprising nor unique that Scalia confirms that he is favors strict constructionism on this issue. This was well known about him but he is right. You can read and re-read the Constitution all you want. You will not find any reference to abortion, sexual orientation, or the right to privacy. Hard to imagine John Adams and Thomas Jefferson or James Madison discussing the right to back room abortions and same sex marriages in 1786. Is that not the whole point? Should what we imagine took place 220 plus years ago serve as the basis for federal intervention over states rights? If thats the case, I have a very vivid and creative imagination……

Bottom line is that we will never know what their intent was but we sure have spent a lot of time on speculating.

What we have done over the last 220 plus years is to use the fiction of what we “think they meant” as a substitute for the political agendas and social morality of the moment and a federal “in loco parentis” in protecting us from ourselves on issues that are clearly not addressed in the Constitution and therefore the responsibility of the state and not the federal government. We then turn to the 14th Amendment and the all encompassing and saving word “due process” to justify each and every twist and turn of the Constitution our “Federal Parents” decide are in our best interest…. Thanks mom and dad but I have read the 14th Amendment and I still don’t see anything about a Federal right to privacy…..

I can just see President Andrew Johnson saying, we need this amendment to address Civil War Rconstruction and oh yea, there is that abortion thing too…..

I do recall something in the Tenth Amendment about rights not specifically reserved to the federal government being left to the states. I have looked and looked but I don’t see anything reserving the power to determine abortion rights to the federal government

If you listen to what Scalia has to say, it seems clear Roe is headed back to the states. Strict Constructionism will win the day here which is a good thing. Roe was terrible law. Not because I am for or against abortion but simply because there is no Constitutional federal right to privacy. This is not about pro or anti-abortion. It is about the simple issue of whether the state or federal government should be addressing these issues. Under a strict constructionist analysis, it is very simple. Either is is explicitly addressed in the Constitution or it is not. We are not trying to read the minds of people who lived over two hundred years ago.

This is not a question of whether abortion is right or wrong, its a question of whether the Federal Government has the right and authority to mandate whether it is right or wrong….

What do you think?