Right To Privacy Is Not A License To Kill
January 28th, 2012, 9:00 pm · 10 Comments · posted by Thomas J. Lucente Jr.
The 39th anniversary has passed marking the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857). I am referring, of course, to Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that gave women a right to commit murder under the rubric of a “right to privacy.”
Conservatives challenge this rule by arguing there is no right to privacy in our Constitution.
This is wrong. There clearly is a fundamental right to privacy. Things such as the Fourth Amendment, the right to be free from unreasonable searches, requires a right to privacy or it makes no sense. The right can also be discerned in what lawyers call the “penumbras” of the First, Third, Fifth and Ninth Amendments.
While the court has not always used the phrase “right to privacy,” it has recognized the right since the founding of the Republic. In 1928, Justice Louis Brandeis said “the right most valued by civilized men” is “the right to be left alone.”
So it is easy to see that there is a zone of privacy around our bodies and homes that the government may not casually breach.
Still, the right to privacy does not give one the right to kill, as liberals argue.
A person’s right to privacy allows one the right to choose with whom to have sex. It gives one the right to use contraceptives. It even gives one the right to marry whom one wishes regardless of race or (someday) sex.
However, once one makes those private decisions and becomes pregnant, she no longer has the right to kill that baby simply because she finds it inconvenient. Even in cases of rape (no one ever said life was fair).
John Stuart Mill, in his essay “On Liberty,” wrote: “The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercise over any member of a civilized community against his will is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant.”
This is known as the Harm Principle. No one has the right to cause harm to another. It is at the core of my classical liberal philosophy. Under this principle, the only legitimate function of government is to protect people from harm from others. (That, by the way, does not include protecting them from harming themselves.)
And what greater harm can a mother do to an unborn child than kill him or her?
When the Supreme Court ruled that a woman’s right to privacy allows her to kill an unborn child, it violated the Harm Principle. Egregiously.
The pro-abortion crowd will argue that because I am a man, I should not be allowed to have an opinion on abortion, unless, of course, I support the mass murder of 50 million babies in the last 39 years. That’s akin to saying I can’t criticize the president unless I have been the president.
They also will argue the baby is not a human and therefore not worthy of protection. Mankind has often put forth that argument to rationalize mass murder. Hitler said the Jews and other Eastern Europeans were not humans. A rose by any other name?
In reality, a fetus is just at a different stage of human development, no different than babies, children or adults. Almost all species go through different stages of life. It is telling that 38 states have homicide laws that include an unborn fetus in the definition of a person.
Most abortions in this country are performed after the sixth week of pregnancy. The baby develops a detectable heartbeat around the fourth week.
How can someone claim a baby with a heartbeat is not a person just because it can’t survive on its own? Babies cannot survive without adult care. Many adults are also unable to care for themselves. Should we kill them too?
See the nonsense one has to adopt in order to accept the proposition that a woman can kill a child and claim a privacy right to that act?
It’s time to end the bloodshed and put an end to the idea that the right to privacy is an affirmative defense to murder. A healthy society does not allow the wholesale killing of one segment of its population.
Cross posted at Light of Liberty.
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This article lies. It says: “In reality, a fetus is just at a different stage of human development, no different than babies, children or adults. ”
This is a lie. There is a difference. “Babies, children or adults” are not living inside another human. If you can call abortion murder, I can call your position pro-slavery. If a woman is not allowed to make the decision to carry or not carry to term, she is a slave. Only the woman can choose whether the life inside her is wanted or not. You can’t and the government certainly can’t. So, admit it: you’re pro-slavery, aren’t you?
Abortion is perhaps the single most selfish act a person can legally perform in this country. I see no problem with using contraceptives or even the Morning After pill in the case of rape or incest, but where do we get off thinking an unborn person is any less precious then one that has already taken its first breath?
I’m with Rocky. If government power doesn’t stop at our skin, then we might as well just all put on our swastika armbands and march the goose-step.
If getting rid of an embryo is “murder,” then for consistency’s sake, they should make it illegal to excise a cancerous tumor or a wart – they’re living human tissue too, right?
And, even though I’m not a Thumper, it seems quite clear in Genesis 2:7: “And the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul.” that the difference is “the breath of life.”
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/cm/v27/n1/breath-of-life
But the anti-choicers apparently have always believed women are property, which as Rocky says, is slavery, plain and simple.
A fetus is hardly a tumor or piece of insignificant tissue. It has the potential to be a human being. I’m an atheist so I don’t believe in the superstitious idea of a soul or any of the other religious reasons against abortion. In fact I stated above that I have no qualms about abortion in the very early stages of fetal development, in the first few weeks before a central nervous system is sufficiently developed to perceive and react to stimuli such as pain. At that point I would qualify abortion as murder. The real crux of the matter is we demand individual liberty without accepting the responsibility that comes with it. Abortion is just so much easier then carrying a child to term and offering that child to a family that will love it.
I think we can all agree that the government frequently oversteps its bounds, but the single most important role of government is to protect the individual from harm from others. I happen to believe that protection should be extended to an unborn person as well. However, laws come from the people, out of a civil society, and not from any government. We as a society have abandoned those morals that would make it unthinkable to kill a baby.
Rocky, that is the most ridiculous statement I have read in some time. Government’s only legitimate role is to protect its citizen. The unborn child qualifies.
Really, Rich? You are comparing protecting life with the Nazi regime? That is plain silly.
If we are going to compare anything with the Nazi regime it has to be the Holocaust, which only killed 6 million, and American abortion, which has killed 50 million.
If you believe government should protect rights, then you have to accept that government should protect the rights of the unborn.
As for the wart, even you know that argument is beneath you.
BTW, Rich, I am not making a religious argument so your use of Genesis is irrelevant.
The Bible should not be used as a law book, medical journal or history book. So it has no place in this secular debate on whether the government should permit the murder of 50 million babies.
Contraception and abortion should be covered by insurance just as any other surgical procedure and medication are covered. Most Catholics have put aside their church rules concerning contraception and divorce, and many have had abortions. This is not an assult on the church but rather allowing women the freedom to choose what is best for them. Let’s keep politics and religion out of healthcare and leave these decisions up to the doctors and patients who are involved.
Religion and politics aside, I don’t see where I should have to pay for another person’s family planning decision. If an employer wants to include such a benefit for it employees that a contract negotiated between them. If Obama makes ALL insurance carriers responsible for providing that option then that means we all assume that extra cost to our premiums to cover that benefit. I object to that more on principle then religion or politics. Healthcare has grown way too expensive for just this reason.