Forty-three years ago the U.S. Supreme Court invented a "right to privacy" in the Constitution in its Griswold v. Connecticut edict. As William O. Douglas rationalized, "specific guarantees in the Bill of Rights have penumbras, formed by emanations from those guarantees that help give them life and substance." Sure. Whatever you say. The decision invalidated state laws prohibiting contraceptives. It would have been bad enough had it stopped there. But, in the intervening years, the same forces have extended the logic of Griswold to find a right to an abortion, and now, a responsibility for doctors to provide contraception--even when it violates personal conscience.

"From a policy standpoint, it is important that the pro-life movement oppose governmental efforts to encourage contraceptive use--particularly among minors," Professor Michael New writes at NationalReviewOnline. "Indeed, the aggressive promotion of contraceptives would shift cultural norms in ways that would do considerable long-term damage to the pro-life cause." Put another way, New's argument is that rather than cutting the number of abortions, widespread, free availability of contraceptives will only further an anarchic sexual culture that will ultimately result in more abortions.

Who would have thought that contraception, forty-three years after Griswold, would be an issue in a presidential campaign? John McCain's inabilty to answer "whether insurance companies should be forced to cover contraceptives in their policies," and President Bush providing legal cover to health-care providers who decide not to provide contraceptives, has enraged the pro-choice activists into running campaign ads on the topic and issuing direct-mail letters.

In their outrage, one sees clearly the slippery slope from "pro choice" to force. Given the force involved in that euphemism that simply means the right to kill a baby, the drift from it to legal compulsion forcing doctors to violate their consciences isn't so great. So moral do pro-choice activists see their crusade that not only must laws emanating from the people be invalidated, as in Griswold, but individuals exercising their freedom to chose, as in the doctors who object to abortion or contraceptives, must be forced to act against belief, religious or otherwise. Pro choice?

Dan - thanks for standing up for the babies with your poignant words, too many others forget about them. Thank you for being one of those speaking out against the insane times we live in.

I just wonder why the leftist pro-choicers are so concerned about how many soldiers are lost in Iraq and Afghanistan but could care one wit about little humans being killed as a results of getting their brains sucked out before their first birthday.

I often wondered who invented "The right to privacy." Thanks, Dan. Then again, is it possible to invent a right? Or does the ninth amendment have any meaning in the conservative's mind?

Yeah, I'm sick of Cheney listening in to my conversations with my wife about our dinner plans.

Guido,

What is the document that the government can serve you to violate your freedom of speech? What is the document for peaceful assembly? What is the document to suspend your religious expression?

Now, most of us can name the document which allows violation of our privacy. The constitution even mentions it.

I know that you libs these days have your own standard to decide when you have just cause to suppress speech.

Had Griswold gotten his condoms from out of state, and brought them back with them, there would have been no case. But "privacy" was used to argue that somebody had the right to vend them publicly because they were used as a private manner. The law was against a public transaction, not a private one.

Plus, almost all crimes are done in private. So we constantly tell people what they can and can't do in private. Heck, I'm not going to be privately allowed to prefer incandescent bulbs soon.

Isn't it a private matter how much I make? Every place I work at has penalties for violating that private matter. Don't I have a ninth amendment right not to have to tell the state how much I make?

Nope because nationalists have decided that I don't. They are all up in my bidness about everything you care about.

Libs are awesome at special pleading.

"Had Griswold gotten his condoms from out of state, and brought them back with him, there would have been no case." (What a clever way to avoid the law! Not wise, but clever.)

It may be difficult, but let's get in the real world.

USING contraceptives was entirely forbidden by Connecticut law, by married couples or otherwise. I think that is what happens when a religious faction controlls the state legislature. (Thereby foisting it's beliefs on everyone.)

I guess you had to be there.

No one had to be there, and that's the damn point. If people didn't like the law in the State of Connecticut, or any other State for that matter, they could leave and go somewhere else or change the law. Now that that power to govern ourselves on these issues has been usurped by the Feds, we are powerless unless they deign to return it to us.

"the U. S. Supreme Court invented a 'right to privacy'..."

"Had Griswold gotten his condoms from out of state, and brought them back with them, there would have been no case."

"If people don't like the law in the State of Connecticut, or any other state for that matter, theu could leave..."

Remarkable

Almost as remarkable as deciding that vending condoms in public was a matter of "privacy".