timesjoke
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 28, 2007
Notice it was Scalia and Thomas who dissented. They dissented not because of any love for sex offenders but because of an attachment to our constitution and the concept of limited government power. Scalia and Thomas will rule similarly on Oklahomas' new law. They will be joined by the liberals for sure. It may well be a shutout 9-0.
It would be a gross over reaching of power for the Federal Government to slap down the rights of the States to govern their own people. In Roe v Wade the Supreme Court ruled that the right to abortion was not absolute:
On the basis of elements such as these, appellant and some amici argue that the woman's right is absolute and that she is entitled to terminate her pregnancy at whatever time, in whatever way, and for whatever reason she alone chooses. With this we do not agree. Appellant's arguments that Texas either has no valid interest at all in regulating the abortion decision, or no interest strong enough to support any limitation upon the woman's sole determination, are unpersuasive. The [410 U.S. 113, 154] Court's decisions recognizing a right of privacy also acknowledge that some state regulation in areas protected by that right is appropriate. As noted above, a State may properly assert important interests in safeguarding health, in maintaining medical standards, and in protecting potential life. At some point in pregnancy, these respective interests become sufficiently compelling to sustain regulation of the factors that govern the abortion decision. The privacy right involved, therefore, cannot be said to be absolute. In fact, it is not clear to us that the claim asserted by some amici that one has an unlimited right to do with one's body as one pleases bears a close relationship to the right of privacy previously articulated in the Court's decisions. The Court has refused to recognize an unlimited right of this kind in the past. Jacobson v. Massachusetts, 197 U.S. 11 (1905) (vaccination); Buck v. Bell, 274 U.S. 200 (1927) (sterilization).
We, therefore, conclude that the right of personal privacy includes the abortion decision, but that this right is not unqualified and must be considered against important state interests in regulation.
Although the results are divided, most of these courts have agreed that the right of privacy, however based, is broad enough to cover the abortion decision; that the right, nonetheless, is not absolute and is subject to some limitations; and that at some point the state interests as to protection of health, medical standards, and prenatal life, become dominant. We agree with this approach.
This law does not directly stop the ability to get an abortion, it simply reattaches the humanity segment of the abortion decision. I predict that if this does make it to the Supreme Court, they will uphold their earlier provision that each State does have a interest in defending the life of the unborn and small measures as this are reasonable.