There is no right to privacy in the Constitution, and if there were such a right, a right to an abortion would not logically follow. Strange that so many senators wholly base their confirmation vote on whether a potential judge will affirm a non sequitur abortion right falsely inferred from a right that nobody can find in the Constitution.

Would you care to reconsider that?

That is what one gets with direct election of Senators. Democracy rarely rewards intelligence, prudence, logic or virtue. Rather, the demagogues and ambitious inevitably rise to power.

Guido, care to elaborate on what you are asking?

What's really strange is the collective denial and self-blinding attitude that most of the world takes towards the murder of an infant. Most intellegent people, and there are very intelligent people who defend the atrocity of abortion, will admit that a human life is destroyed when an abortion is performed. (Save some nutcases who won't even discuss it: http://www.nrlc.org/abortion/pba/notansweringboxersantorum.html)

So, the real question we have to ask ourselves as a culture is: if we know intellectually that abortion is killing an innocent person, why can't a large part of the populace be roused to even THINK about the hideous implications of institutionalizing the practice?

I don't claim to understand the complex reasons why we have become so callous, but I think that it must be rooted in the abandonment of our Western Faith. I had a thought the other day, that in 500 years, the debate over Faith and its role in our lives has moved from "How" to follow Christ, to "Whether" to follow Him. Isn't this really the issue?

Homer,

Well said...doesn't this really stem down to the fact that we have abandoned the sanctity of marriage, have given into pre-marital sex as an acceptable practice, and refuse to base our society on any kind of moral code?

Abortion exists (for the large part) because of irresponsible and immoral people. If we could just all keep our zippers up, as difficult as that may sound, we wouldn't have to destroy our "mistakes".

You know what I love about religious morons like you Christopher? The fact that you talk about a loss of moral, loss of family values and other BS, and quite happilly ignore the fact that every single statistic indicated that the south, the so called self proclaimed Bible belt, is has the single highest statistic of both abortions and divorces in the country. I entirely agree with you, we need to act in a moral fashion, unfortunately, the very people that scream the loudest for it and claim everyone else is immoral and stupid, are the first people to beat children, beat wives, cheat, lie and rape. They are the ones most likely to commit incest, the ones most likely to be pedophiles (though just not 'gay' pedophiles), etc. Were are your God given morals? Why are the heretics better able to make moral choices than the people claiming the world is going to hell because of immorality? Why do 99.9% of you idiots praise clinics that help people become pregnant, but not complain about the lives lost when unused embryos are destroyed, but also scream in anger the moment someone suggests using them to cure diseases? Until you can come up with an answer to these questions that doesn't start with, "I don't believe you!" and ends with, "My morals are superior to yours!", then you have no right to make claims about anyone else's morals, let alone judge the morals involved with a medical proceedure, just because you have some imaginary belief that undifferentiated and incomplete cells, that can't survive without a womb, constitute anything but 'potential' life. Fact: 60% of fetuses abort on their own, even in later stages of development. I am sure you will simply claim "God wanted those to happen." But you imbicils say that about *everything*, until it conflicts with what you want to believe, then suddenly God doesn't. You can stuff your God, along with your self chosen ignorance, lies, false judgements of others, your belief that you have the right to take everything from us for yourself, the belief that you have a devine right to everyone else's life, liberty and property, etc. Take every commandment you break, every day, to attack those that don't bow to you idols, wrap it in your God, who accepts everything you do, but condemns everything anyone else does, and shove it up your ass.

Kahegi: Christopher said nothing in his post about God or religion. Perhaps he is a religious fanatic, but nothing in his post indicates this. If a man in a labcoat showed you a number of ink blots and asked you to interpret them, would you tell him that you saw Jan Hus getting burned at the stake, the Salem witch trials, and the Church placing Galileo under house arrest? In other words, when you rant about "religious morons" in response to a comment devoid of religious content don't be surprised when most readers see you as the fanatic.

Kahegi:

1) "Fact: 60% of fetuses abort on their own, even in later stages of development." Yes, that's what they say. Another FACT: 100% of people die; also, more than 99.999% of the born people who die, die on their own. What does that mean to you? Does it follow that it is alright to kill them?

2) A remark about a statistical fallacy: From the facts (a) that a higher percentage of people in the bible-belt talk loudly about Bible values, and (b) that those states also have the higher percentage of "people [who] beat children, beat wives, cheat, lie and rape", it doesn't follow that it is the SAME PEOPLE who do the loud talking and who do the wife-beating, etc. All that logically entails is that people in group 1 are more likely to be in the SAME STATE as people in group 2.

Kagehi is just upset b/c the Eagles found out which team actually has the best defense in the NFC. Or b/c someone stole his bag of D&D dice.

Homer and Christopher, I think you both make valid points but if we are going to consider the situation with religion in mind then don't underestimate original sin. One of man's favorite pastimes is self-justification so we are quite capable and even horribly imaginative when it comes to "institutionalizing" immorality and injustice. (human sacrifice, gladiators, cannibalism, slavery, etc.)

I do think, though, that things may be worse at this point in history than in any other in one way, namely, the lack of sufficient means to reverse decline or overcome some particular institutionalized evil. The moral and spiritual resources just don't seem to be available anymore. A couple aspects of the problem are that secularism, like Kagehi demonstrates, is so far removed from earlier eras of paganism and also technology is sort of "owning us" (to paraphrase Heidegger, street-style).

"The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." Amendment IX

I will leave the argument as to whether "privacy" is "among" the unalienable rights endowed by our creator and/or whether abortion is somehow related to said "right to privacy" to others.

I will, however say unequivocally, that Mr. Flynn's interpretation of the Constitution is Flawed. Rights are not granted by the Constitution, simply affirmed by it. Government does not grant rights, God does. The Constitution is a document that constrains our government from abridging our rights by specifically enumerating governmental powers.

In other words, and the entire purpose for the 9th Amendment: Rights do not HAVE to be spelled out in the Constitution to be valid. Rights are rights regardless of their acknowledgement by government.

I personally DO believe that we have a "right to privacy" but that it is much more limited in scope than Supreme Court rulings would indicate and it has nothing to do with the right to privately murder one's own unborn child.

I won't rehash any of the excellent comments made above, or defend my own to any extent (I was essentially backhandedly blaming the Reformation for the current moral relativism, as I often do...). Sorry for this long post.

But to Kagehi, assuming for the moment that your overly-generalized view of the Christian South is accurate, I'm still not sure what your point is. One can *know* something is sinful, even evil, yet be sinful themselves. Consider a man on Death Row (let's say for Murder) being led to the Electric Chair. As he walks down the hall, he warns those watching not to live the life he's led, not to kill. He tells them that killing is wrong, and now he's going to pay a price for it. Is he a hypocrite for telling others not to do what he's done himself? I suppose he his, partly. But does that make what he says any less true?

I think what you're getting at is "judgement". Christ Himself tells us not to judge others, and indeed no one has judged anyone in this thread. To call killing a baby evil is not to call the person doing it evil. In fact, I would guess that most women that have abortions are misled, misguided, afraid, and terribly torn over their actions. Yet, once a woman has done this, and realizes how wrong it is, is she no longer allowed to warn others for fear of being called a Hypocrite? This doesn't make sense. She's in the best position to know the true reality of abortion.

Those who have their faith as a touchstone at least have guidelines to adhere and aspire to. These guidlines are not rules to stifle us, but are intended to bring out the best in Mankind. Surely you would agree that if one could be the most perfect Christian, he would be someone to admire. Yet, none of us will ever achieve this totally, as we're human and we're not perfect. But shouldn't we try? What guidelines and higher goals do the faithless have to aspire to?

"Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future" - Oscar Wilde

"Christ Himself tells us not to judge others"

I would agree that it is not our place, as imperfect humans, to determine whether an individual is "evil" or not even though their actions may plainly be so. However we have to be careful about not placing too much emphaisis on being "non-judgmental". When taken in context, Christ was not admonishing us never to make judgements, he was warning us that we would be judged based upon the same criteria by which we judge others.

In the words of Thomas Sowell: "How anyone can argue in favor of being non-judgmental is beyond me. To say that being non-judgmental is better than being judgmental is itself a judgment, and therefore a violation of the principle."

I expounded a little more about "Rights" in general and specifically the "Right to Privacy" as it relates to abortion on my blog (captainofone.blogspot.com) if anyone is interested

Curtis: Did Flynn or anyone else on this thread say that the constitution "grants" rights? The problem, as far as I can see, with saying that the "right to privacy" is among unenumerated rights is that it isn't anything like the types of rights they were dealing with in the constitution-- the "right to privacy" is vague, flowery, doesn't guarantee anything in particular and may guarantee everything. Contrast with the enumerated rights. If the right to privacy means anything at all, I think it guarantee everyone thier own full bathroom. That is far more important to me than a right to murder preborns. So one can agree with you that the retained unenerated rights are indeterminately numerous and not granted (but protected) by the constitution, and still deny that a "right to privacy" is one of them.

Why is it when somebody speaks in religious terms, they are referred to as either a nut or a moron by some people?

Seems to me that the name callers need to look in the mirror and take a reality check.

Curtis, I didn't make my point very clear, actually. Sorry about this. I was trying to point out the difference between judgement of the act and the person

skeptic: Points well made. As I said in my last post (in a shameless plug no less), I expound upon my reasoning for accepting a limited "right to privacy" as a right on my own blog. That discussion is simply too long to waste Mr. Flynn's space with it.

I absolutely do not support any "right to privacy" as grounds for protecting the murder of unborn children. If such a right exists (and you make a good point to the contrary) it is very limited in scope...but I'm not going to go into that here.

My point is that it is not only incorrect to allege that a right does not exist simply because it is not enumerated in the Constitution, it is also dangerous to do so. To say that no right exists if it is not readily found in the Constitution is to imply that the Constitution is the source of our rights. If that is so, then government is the source rather than "our Creator" and government can eliminate rights simply by amending the Constitution.

Whether Privacy is a right or not in certain circumstances is indeed arguable, but that argument has absolutely nothing to do with whether or not that right is spelled out in the Constitution.

Bottom line
I am against Abortion and maybe you are too. But I believe in a free democratcy we all have a choice! Whatever the Supreme Court decides, Abortion is not going away. We can end abortion on a personal level with yourself, your daughters, girlfriends and wives. At the end of the day No other way will work

Bottom line: I am against bombing abortion clinics and maybe you are too. But I believe in a free democracy we all have a choice! Whatever the Supreme Court decides, bombing abortion clinics is not going away. We can end the bombings on a personal level--with yourself, your cousins in Appalachia, your uncle with a pick-up truck. At the end of the day, no other way will work.

We don't all have a choice to break the law, not if we want to stay out of jail.
Bombing Abortion clinics does not and will not stops abortions. Abortion is legal and always will be.

Cute response Eric. I was impressed.

"Abortion is legal and always will be." Do you have any reasons to back this claim, RC? Would you like to share them?

"But I believe in a free democratcy we all have a choice! "

It all boils down to whether you believe an unborn child is a human being or not. When I was in high school, I supported "choice". Several events in my life had prompted me to change my position.

Based upon my life experiences, I believe an unborn child to be a human being. Not a "potential human being" an actual, live human being.

As such, that human being has rights just like any other human being. Among those rights are the right to life.

Eric's parody of your post is an effective demonstration that your rationalization can be used to attempt to justify any criminal act.

Your contention is that a mother can choose to murder her child if it is more convenient for her to do so than to bear it, raise it and care for it.

Right now, abortion is not seen in that light by society, but it should be and it may someday attain that level. At least I can hope.

One other point: Abortion wasn't illegal before Roe Vs. Wade. It was up to the states, as all crimininal law (with the exception of treason) is supposed to be. It was legal and unfettered in a few states, it was illegal and banned an a few states, in the majority of states it was legal but regulated to some degree or another. It strikes me as interesting that, in the states where abortion was illegal or tightly regulated before Roe, there are VERY few abortion clinics (like a handful in total). Roe had very little impact on the availability of abortions in states that had previously outlawed it and would have similarly little impact were it to be overturned (except in the minds of some feminist zealots who regard bearing children to be a sexist act).

Curtis,

Minor point but abortion wasn't legal in any state at all prior to around 1960 except for maybe just a couple that allowed for them only in the so-called "exceptions" (life, incest, rape).I definitely wouldn't characterize it as "unfettered" in any state until NY circa 1970.

Look, sorry for blowing my top. The phrase, "we have abandoned the sanctity of marriage, have given into pre-marital sex as an acceptable practice", practically comes out of the fundimentalist play book.

Historically and even Biblically its total BS. Kind of like the insane arguments made against nudity, which ignore numerous passages in the Bible commanding it or were people are punished for lust, rape, etc., but *never* nudity. Try reading everything in the Bible about marraige, then tell me how it doesn't equate to some man 'giving' the bride to someone else, for financial or political gains, with no concern or respect for the woman. Even the commandment often used to attack pre-marital sex talks about children as 'property' to be kept pure until they are basically sold to someone. Well, the girls anyway. They are treated as the equivalent of goats or a cooking pot. Yeah, great source of moral standards. If you hate gay people, that's fine, but the passage only refers to Sodamy, not gays, so Lesbians are entirely off the hook, but a few sentences farther on, it also insists that you beat unruly children until they are dead. You think that is right? If not, then why is only part right, and the other part not? I am afraid I lost my Jesus Secret Decoder Ring, which magically tells you which bits of the Bible are holy truth and which bits are anologies or irrelevant BS.

Here is a statistic, 90% of the atheists I have ever met started as Catholics, Protestant or some other denomination of Christinity, then one day they did what 99.9% of you people don't, they read the Bible from cover to cover, without special cliff notes or some priest to tell them which bits to ignore. Every one of them realized in short order that it was vacuous, inconstistent, self contradictory and that any God as depicted in it was a) not worthy of worship and b) possibly a complete sociopath. I know of none of them that have been in jail, at least 'after' abandoning their faith, none that are pedophiles, none that ever commited incest or rape, none that steal, etc. Most know the Bible better than you ever will and adhere to the golden rule to an extent that would make some of Christ's actions look ungodly. How can this be true, if our basis for morality is inferior?

Don't bother to answer. You don't have one. Just more excuses for how I must be wrong, how Christians don't do bad things, and how your morals are better than mine because some invisible guy with a beard told you so.

Settle down, 'dere, Sizzle Chest.

Wow, Kahegi, and you were out to defend youself from the charge of fanatic anti-Christian bigotry? (a) Most Christians are not literalists, and most are also not sola scriptura or fundamentalist. (b) Most Christiams accept that an understanding of the New Testiment, which doesn't have the problems you ridicule when the whole OT is read literally, is THE proper lens for the OT. Thus, Christians don't keep kosher, etc. (c) If you want to check out some atheist ex-Christians, whom you seem to praise as generally saintly, who really sucked, just read a history of 20th Century Europe. You don't get anything as disgusting as the Nazi or Commie mass murders in the whole history of Christianity.

Kagehi,

I might return to my atheist past if I could believe what you say. But I cannot. Atheism is a far too simple methodology. Atheists seldom follow the methodology by which they name themselves when it comes to other things.

"Try reading everything in the Bible about marraige, then tell me how it doesn't equate to some man 'giving' the bride to someone else, for financial or political gains, with no concern or respect for the woman."

Show me another culture at the time that acted any differently. Could it not be that you are dealing with is the nature of tribal man as he was? And were this true, how does there being no God make it better?

In fact, there being no God, then this arrangement actually sounds more a natural state, and thus less objectionable, then if there were a source of extra-human morality driving things. Thus the admonition against the way of the flesh actually would serve to inhibit this natural tendancy than to encourage it. If the Bible is anthropomorphic projection, then all it illustrates is that while man sought a better way of doing things he allowed himself to read into "The Good" the way that he liked things done.

This does not make what is "good" anymore evident, mind you. It just makes it evident how far we've come by telling people to do other than that they normally would. If we prefer it that way, then it is a preference and nothing directly against those that might prefer it another way, as long as we describe it as "preference".

But from a purely evidentiary stance, I cannot see it as anything other than preference. So it seems that you are screaming about people who prefer to live their lives in a different way than you do. The progressive atheist has a mangled-up mess of an epistemology that I no longer can afford to cloud my brain with.

And judging from my own experience with atheists, I find the 90% that you cite highly bogus.