Not all rights explicit in U.S. Constitution
Facts matter. The 1973 Supreme Court that rendered the 7-to-2 Roe v. Wade decision was made up of six Republican and three Democratic-appointed justices. Five Republican and two Democratic appointees voted to affirm a woman’s right to abortion and one from each party dissented. That hardly constitutes a liberal court.
The canard that abortion is not mentioned in the Constitution is ridiculous. There are many elements fundamental to our lives in a democratic society that are not enumerated in the Constitution: to travel, to marry or not marry, to be presumed innocent until proven guilty or to privacy are just a few. And here’s the real kicker: “Judicial review,” the seemingly inherent power of the court to rule on the constitutionality of a law, is not explicitly mentioned in the Constitution.
To overturn Roe, after nearly 50 years of judicial reaffirmation, would be devastating to the lives of many women. It wouldn’t end abortion. It’ll just force these women (many low income) into the shadowy world of back-alley abortionists and dangerous choices.
Michael D. Clark
Ala Moana
Court must apply law, not politics
The article, “High court increasingly seen by Americans as too political” (Star-Advertiser, May 5), illustrates the complete lack of understanding by both the authors and those quoted as to the role of the Supreme Court.
While opining that the court should be less political, Jenny Doyle worries that the court is “losing touch with the real America and the real issues of Americans.”
I certainly hope it’s doing just that. It’s not the role of the court to rule based on popular opinion, which would indeed be political, but rather to determine the legitimacy of the law under the Constitution.
In debating the legitimacy of Roe v. Wade, the court is not advocating for or against abortion rights, but rather determining at what level (federal or state) the power to control those rights lies, and in doing so should continue to remain blind to public opinion.
Tim Gedney
Hawaii Kai
A person’s own body is her own business
The hubris of some men (Ron DeSantis, Greg Abbott, Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas, to name a few) is on display when they claim the right to decide health and medical issues for women.
No woman or girl should be forced to continue a pregnancy. No law forces a man’s reproductive choices. No law tells anyone who has cancer whether and how they must be treated or denies choice of life-saving procedures. No law should decide what a woman — or a man — must do for her or his own body.
The 1973 Supreme Court codified a woman’s right to personal choice with passage of Roe v. Wade. It was not a “liberal” court or decision. Five of seven justices who voted in favor were appointed by Republican presidents: three by Richard Nixon and two by Dwight Eisenhower. They used law and judgment, not politics, to make their decision.
Judith Goldman
Ala Moana
No women’s rights 200 years ago
Harold Nakagawa argued that there is no right to abortion in the U.S. Constitution. The same day, in The New Yorker magazine, a long article by Jill Lepore explained that American females had no rights at all until the 20th century, unless they were amalgamated to a male by marriage.
Due to the length of the article, just one paragraph is quoted here: “(Supreme Court Justice Samuel) Alito, shocked — shocked — to discover so little in the law books of the eighteen-sixties guaranteeing a right to abortion, has missed the point: hardly anything in the law books of the eighteen-sixties guaranteed women anything. Because, usually, they still weren’t persons. Nor, for that matter, were fetuses.”
To deny American women rights today because their rights were not recognized for 200 years is wrong.
Ron Nagy
Kahala
Mother Nature has fundamental rights
We are dependent on the offerings of Mother Nature. The destruction of natural objects, by permit or otherwise, needs to stop.
Historically, many people were denied the rights they now possess. Natural places, such as estuaries, forests, mountain ranges, plains and waterways must also have rights.
When “natural environmental objects” are valued solely for their benefits to humans, humans feel justified to alter or destroy their natural state of being. Their continued defilement significantly accounts for the pollution of our land, air and waters.
Most wildlife retreats as humans approach. They want to be left alone. Natural objects cannot pick up and go, or even voice their opposition to being changed or destroyed.
This leaves Man to believe it to be his right to alter them for his personal interests.
We are firmly on the road to an unlivable world. It’s time to fight for our real mother: Mother Nature.
Stann W. Reiziss
Kailua
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