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state, which meant foster care or adop-
tion by strangers.
c. Abortion
Roe v. Wade14 is without doubt the most
divisive, controversial opinion ever issued by the United States Supreme Court.
It is also the perfect example of what happens when citizens stop paying attention
to what the courts are doing to the laws
and principles they hold dear.
At issue were Texas statutes that made
“it a crime to ‘procure an abortion,’ as
therein defined, or to attempt one, ex-
cept with respect to ‘an abortion pro-
cured or attempted by medical advice
for the purpose of saving the life of the
mother.’” 15 Roe sought an elective abor-
tion and did not dispute that her life was
not threatened by the pregnancy. “She
claimed that the Texas statutes were
unconstitutionally vague and that they
abridged her right of personal privacy,
protected by the First, Fourth, Fifth,
Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments.” 16
It’s the “right to privacy” where we find
the penumbral right to kill unborn
children.
As proof that the “penumbra” is indeed
dangerous ground in that it can ultimate-
ly be used to implement very dangerous
and even deadly policies, consider what
the court itself observed from the Appel-
lant’s own argument:
The principal thrust of appellant’s
attack on the Texas statutes is that
they improperly invade a right, said
to be possessed by the pregnant
woman, to choose to terminate her
pregnancy. Appellant would dis-
cover this right in the concept of
personal “liberty” embodied in the
Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Pro-
cess Clause; or in personal, marital,
familial, and sexual privacy said to
be protected by the Bill of Rights or
its penumbras.
The Constitution does not explicitly mention any right of privacy. In
a line of decisions, however, going
back perhaps as far as Union Pacific
R. Co. v. Botsford, 141 U. S. 250, 251
(1891), the Court has recognized
that a right of personal privacy, or a
guarantee of certain areas or zones
of privacy, does exist under the
Constitution. 17
Where did this lead? For the first time
in American history, a Court declared
that women have the constitutional right
to abort their pregnancies. Put another
way, one class of citizens, due to the penumbra surrounding the “Right to Privacy,” now has the power to kill the unborn
children in their wombs. 18
d. Homosexual activity
Bowers v. Hardwick19 and Lawrence v.
Texas20 address the same question and
occurred within a few years of each other, yet ended up with very different, contradictory outcomes. We should be able
to rely on United States Supreme Court
opinions as the law of the land from one
composition of the Court to another. The
conflicting holdings in Bowers v. Hardwick and Lawrence v. Texas are perfect
examples of what happens when Courts
and not elected legislators make law.
Simply put, the mere act of replacing one
justice or another can reverse hundreds
of years of legal precedents—or even less
than ten years of precedents. And it’s not
