The Court Called Supreme and Abortion

There is a case before the Supreme Court now that affects all of us.  On the surface, the case is only about abortion, but it deals with five important issues that concern all of us. 

The first issue is the question of what a Constitutional right is. 

There is talk that this case might overturn a previous Court ruling that not only made abortion the law of the land but also engendered the belief that abortion is a Constitutional right. 

At the time when our Constitution was written, the only rights anyone was talking about were unalienable rights, those spoken of in the Declaration of Independence, rights that precede and supersede government and that government cannot restrict or take away.  These, the Founders said, were given to human beings by God.

The Founders debated whether to include some of these unalienable rights in the Constitution itself.  They were concerned that people might think that these rights came from the government rather than from God.

They finally decided to add them as amendments to our Constitution, and the first ten became known as the Bill of Rights. 

So a Constitutional right would be an unalienable right, one that government cannot restrict or take away. 

Abortion is now legal, but is it a right, a Constitutional one at that?

This is the second issue: how do we know a right is a Constitutional one?

A Constitutional right would have to be an unalienable right, given by God. 

The thinking of the Court was that abortion was a part of some privacy concerns of the Fourth Amendment.  That would be limiting government intrusion into a person’s life.  Is a limitation or ban on abortion an intrusion into a person’s life?  Or are they prohibitions on wrongful activity?

If I were making bombs in my basement, do I have a right to privacy?  If I were aborting a baby, would I still have that right to privacy? 

One of the foundational rights of our country is the right to life.  When does a baby get that right?  When we decide?  When her mother decides?  Then how is that an unalienable right, if other people can decide when or if a person gets it?

That’s the basic issue of abortion.  Not the mother’s rights but the baby’s.

So then the question: how do we decide if an issue, a right, is a Constitutional right? 

I think we should be very careful before we assert that some new right is a Constitutional right.

I frankly doubt that, after 200-some years, anyone is going to discover a new right today that everybody would agree that this right comes from God.  And that’s what a Constitutional right is.

Should we decide these questions by taking opinion polls?  Are unalienable rights unalienable because a majority of nine people on a court say so?  It may not even be a unanimous decision.  Shouldn’t an unalienable right at least have some consensus in a country?  If half the country is opposed to something, can we really say that this right is unalienable, such that it can never be changed. 

Saying that these rights come from God suggests to me that the Founders were thinking of some external point of reference, like the Bible, because other religions don’t all agree with our understanding of unalienable rights, e.g. the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  You can’t really talk about God in a generic sense.  It would have to relate to a religion that the people were familiar with.  A religion is a common understanding of God.

Thirdly, the fact that something is legal doesn’t mean that it is right.

Lying is illegal if you do it in court while under oath, but in everyday life, there is no law against it.  Does that mean it’s alright to lie, if you haven’t taken an oath beforehand that you won’t?  I would say no.  I’m guessing some would disagree, saying it depends on the circumstances.

But we could probably agree that there are things that are right and things that are wrong.  But our laws don’t forbid everything that is wrong, and in some cases may specifically allow things we believe to be wrong.

So whether something is right or wrong is not determined by laws.  Laws only determine if certain behavior requires a public response to inhibit it, not whether something is intrinsically bad. 

Fourth, something isn’t a right, just because loud voices insist that it is. 

People seem prone to declaring rights that everyone is supposed to accept as inviolable ones.  Governments can endow the people with rights, and they can revoke them as well.  And asserting that something is a right does not make it one, and you should not expect that everyone is going to agree with you.    You can expect to be challenged.

Where does abortion fit here?

The public is divided.

And the last issue isn’t about rights but about equal protection.

The Fourteen Amendment to our Constitution guarantees equal protection under the law. 

Does that mean that different abortion laws in different states constitute unequal protection under the law?

By that thinking, states shouldn’t make laws.  Only the federal government should, so every state has the same laws.

No, equal protection under the law means that the law will apply equally to all those affected by the law.  Because you can drive 75 in Montana does not mean that you can drive 75 in Illinois.  And it does not mean that Illinois must change its law to match Montana’s.  But it does mean that in each state, the penalty for breaking the law will, or should, apply to everyone equally.

Soon the Supreme Court will make a ruling on a recent abortion law. 

Just remember. 

The law and the ruling are about a lot more than just abo

finding answers to gun violence

Our local newspaper keeps printing editorials crying out for solutions to the problem of gun violence. 

I think the thing that we seem to be forgetting here is that the key word in gun violence is violence and not gun.

We had a man just a few days ago who killed 8 people with his car.

We are making a big mistake if we think that these events are not related, that a man mowing down people with his car is a different problem than people mowing down people with a gun.

The problem is not the abundance of cars, I mean, guns.  The problem is that we have people who want to hurt and kill other people, and they have no moral or mental constraints that prevent them from doing so.  Sure, if you take away all the guns, you will cut down on gun violence.   Though we laws against certain drugs, yet there seems to be little problem for people who want them to get them.  I suspect that would be the same for guns. 

You will probably see more car violence.  And in some cultures, the preferred method of killing people is bombs. 

Removing all the guns may reduce the number of total murders, but is that a win?  You may think so, but if you don’t deal with people’s hearts, turning anger and hatred into peace and love, then you are setting your sights too low.

And this is the real problem.

You can’t give peace to angry hearts and turn hatred into love without God. 

There.  I did it.  I said the G-word right out here in public. 

So-called secular countries are a new thing in human history.  Countries have always acknowledged God or a god in their lives.  We started off with the communist countries that denied the very existence of God.  Now the West joined in with secularism, that, while not necessarily denying God’s existence, it affirms that such belief is a private matter and not relevant to public life and policy-making.

But when we were not afraid to acknowledge God publicly in our country, that acknowledgement gave people pause in that they knew they were accountable to a Higher Power, that people were created in God’s image and thus worthy of respect, and there were God-given rules for life: the Ten Commandments and the Golden Rule.

pornography in public schools

I agree with the Sun-Times editorial that censoring books is never a good idea (Censoring books . . . , November 19).

But the current issue is not about censorship.  It’s about exposing minors to pornographic literature.  Sure, they can find it on the internet if they want, but schools exist to teach kids about life, how to live it and how to get along in it.  A person goes to school to learn good things that will help them.  Not all things are helpful here.  School libraries have to choose which books to carry.  They cannot carry everything. 

A book about a person’s self-discovery can be helpful.  If the book has pornographic content, then what help it gives is mixed.  Like two steps forward, two steps backward.  Find another one that doesn’t have the pornography.  There are thousands of other books that are helpful without crossing those lines.

After all, we have laws, and have had them for a long time, that minors should not have ready access to pornography.  Certainly schools should not be the place for a person to access it.  We can do better.  We need to. 

We need to consider whether books build a person up, teach them good things, provide them with essential knowledge and experiences that they will need in life.  They should not have to read pornography to get that.  They can find that on their own if they want it, but not in a public school.

If a student is merely offended by something they read, that shouldn’t be a reason to remove the book.  If the book exists merely to offend people, then again, I think we can and should do better.

the newest big government spending bill

I’m not a fan of the new trillion-dollar infrastructure bill.  I try to see what’s in it, and I find maybe a half trillion dollars for roads, bridges, water, airports, etc.  But what’s the other half trillion dollars for?

Whenever the government wants to spend money for your good, if you do the math, the numbers never match up. 

They tell you about all the good things the bill will do, but the price tag is always well above what is needed to do those good things.  Go try to find where the money goes.  You’ll probably need a FOIA request and a lot of patience.  Don’t be surprised if you never get your answer.

sports and stereotypes

So what’s the stereotype with a sport team’s name?  (When we talked about Native American stereotypes, November 16)

The Chicago Blackhawks have a portrait of an Indian chief.  Ever been to a rodeo on an Indian reservation?  They wear their headdresses proudly.  What’s the negative stereotype here? 

We forget that those teams that don’t have mascots of a particular minority group have names like Boilermakers, Packers, Patriots, Steelers.  I was never a packer, but I worked in the meat business all my life.  They called us butchers long after we actually butchered anything.  But I can identify as a packer.

Does anybody think that packers and boilermakers and steelers and patriots are offended by having a sports team include them in their name?

I think people are spending too much time thinking of ways they are and should feel offended.  I think they are missing out on so much of life.  Nobody is disparaging you here.  Nobody is thinking less of you.  Nobody is pigeonholing anybody, because they mention or picture one aspect of their lives. 

There is a football team called the Vikings.  I’m sure everybody pictures a certain kind of boat and a certain kind of head gear or dress.  Nobody thinks about the descendants of Vikings or less of them in any way. 

true property tax reform

Property tax reform generally does not take into consideration the biggest problem with property taxes.  (When will City Hall turn property tax hikes into property tax reform?, November 3)

Property taxes do not take into account a person’s ability to pay for them. 

I didn’t give much thought to property taxes until one year I was out of work for much of it.  And then came my property tax bill.  I said there is something wrong here. 

The government needs to move some of the things in the property tax bill to another source of revenue, like the income tax.  Since 2/3 of the property tax goes for public education, that would be my first choice. 

Now that would be real property tax reform.

the new and latest answer to gun violence

A part of me wanted to laugh out loud except that this is serious. (Pritzker gives his prescription for gun violence ‘public health crisis,’ November 2)

In typical modern American government practice, the answer to a problem is money.  Lots of money.  And a new government agency.  And lots of new government employees. 

Two hundred fifty million dollars.  Now that’s doing something.  Nobody can say that Pritzker didn’t do something or wasn’t serious about gun violence.

But gun violence is a moral problem.  And we no longer know what moral problems are.

At the root of gun violence is a complete disregard for the value of human life.  Uncontrolled anger, hatred, and disregard for the public good. 

These are all things that come from within a person.  The government can only provide external restraints and incentives.  But it won’t and can’t touch the human heart.  It can only distract people with activities and threats.  The threats aren’t working, so maybe by adding more activities we will keep people too busy to want to kill each other.

No doubt experts will point to other countries with less gun violence for the answers to our problems.  What they forget is that our country is based on freedom. 

That sounds dangerous to a lot of people.  It didn’t sound dangerous to our Founders, because they believe this freedom comes from God.  And people who believe in God learn about the value of human life and that God holds people accountable for their actions. 

So we in America are trying to live in freedom without the God who gave us freedom, and we are finding that it’s not working.  Rather than bringing God back into our national life, we want to gradually reduce our rights and our freedom and see how much or how little we will live with.