{"id":253436,"date":"2021-09-16T18:41:54","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T23:41:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=253436"},"modified":"2024-09-20T12:18:25","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:18:25","slug":"is-abortion-enumerated-constitutional-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/is-abortion-enumerated-constitutional-right\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Is abortion an enumerated constitutional right?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a recent <\/span>MSNBC<\/span> segment, Joe Scarborough referred to abortion as a \u201cspecifically enumerated constitutional right.\u201d Scarborough\u2019s comment is not unique. He joins a slew of other politicians, commentators, and activists who talk about a so called \u201cenumerated right to abortion.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

But is abortion an enumerated constitutional right? The answer is a firm and unequivocal \u201cno.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The Constitution specifically defines a number of rights enjoyed by the people, including the right to free speech, right to bear arms, and right to practice religion, among others. These are enumerated\u2014explicitly stated\u2014rights. The word \u201cabortion,\u201d on the other hand, never appears in the Constitution.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Unenumerated rights<\/span><\/a> are legal rights inferred from other rights that are implied by existing laws. For example, the Constitution does not explicitly mention a right to privacy; however, the Court has determined a right to privacy exists under the Fourteenth Amendment\u2019s concept of personal liberty.<\/span><\/p>\n

In <\/span>Roe v. Wade<\/span><\/i>, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion, the Court did not argue that abortion is an enumerated right. The Court determined that abortion was covered under the <\/span>right to privacy<\/span><\/a>, which also isn\u2019t explicitly enumerated. The right to privacy originated in the 1965 case <\/span>Griswold v. Connecticut<\/span><\/i> where the Supreme Court decided certain state restrictions on contraception were unconstitutional because they infringed on the privacy of married couples. The case <\/span>Eisenstadt v. Bair<\/span><\/i> then found that the right to privacy also extends to unmarried couples. Then, <\/span>Roe v. Wade <\/span><\/i>concluded that the right to privacy for individuals to obtain contraception included the right to abortion.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The result of this shaky legal foundation is that 60 million preborn children have been killed by legal abortion since that fateful year.<\/span><\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0There is no \u2018right\u2019 to abortion in the U.S. Constitution<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

In a 2019 <\/span>article<\/span><\/a>, conservative author and speaker Ben Shapiro referred to <\/span>Roe v. Wade<\/span><\/i> as \u201ca legal monstrosity,\u201d and took issue with the constitutionality of extending the right to privacy to the killing of preborn children.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe court\u2019s rationale is specious; the court relied on the ridiculous precedent in <\/span>Griswold v. Connecticut<\/span><\/i> (1965) that a broad \u2018right to privacy\u2019 can be crafted from \u2018penumbras, formed by emanations,\u2019\u201d Shapiro stated. \u201cThen the court extended that right to privacy to include the killing of a third party, an unborn human life \u2014 and overrode state definitions of human life in the process.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n