Suddenly there is a lot of chatter about “Roe v. Wade” but little that is substantive. Even Bryan Schott’s informative article on May 10 uses the word “Constitution” only once. This issue is about much more than abortion, it is about the constitutional guarantees of individual liberty.
Amendment 9 of the Constitution of the United States is written in plain English, and seems pretty clear to me: “The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.” I, for one, have always considered personal health care, unfettered by government overreach and away from the prying eyes of Big Brother, to be one of those inalienable rights retained by me.
Nowhere does the Constitution specifically mention “health care”, but I think the framers would be amazed to find that in the 21st century, some radicals, including a few elected representatives, appear to think that government should be micromanaging our personal health care, along with education, school libraries, and practically everything else. Whatever happened to Ronald Reagan’s “The best government is the least government”?
Now consider Amendment 10: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.” Here is a strong case for deferring the whole issue of medical care to the States for regulation. Indeed, the States have long accepted this responsibility, including the licensing of physicians, so why not?
Because Amendment 14, Section 1, says why not, again in plain English: (After defining who is a citizen) “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States … .” This has been duly enforced in the 1973 decision “Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (Just in case you want to read something not written in plain English).
Then there is Amendment 19, which took a giant step toward granting the full rights and responsibilities of citizenship to women, although they are apparently not quite there yet.
Benjamin Everitt, Ivins