Roe versus Vade Case Study - Essay Example

Critics of the judgment have commonly made their arguments based on individual ethical beliefs which are immaterial when examining the language of the Constitution. The point of view that is opposed to the Roe decision can be promptly invalidated by the legal definition when evaluating the specific wordage contained within the Constitution in addition to understanding past precedent of constitutional decisions reached by the Supreme Court. However, there are legitimate questions regarding the Constitutional matters of the Roe decision that warrant answering.

The word “abortion” is not contained within the Constitution but merely because the word itself is not present, the Constitution remains the source of legal precedence for this matter. The justices’ interpretation of the Constitution is the central focus of this subject. Since the Supreme Court is more conservative today in terms of general ideology than in 1973, many think that soon its interpretation of the issue will nearer resemble former Justice William Rehnquist’s dissenting opinion concerning Roe v. Wade. “The Court must be wrong to find any basis for this right in the 14th Amendment to the Constitution.

To reach its result, the Court necessarily has had to find within the scope of the Fourteenth Amendment a right that was apparently completely unknown to the drafters of the Amendment” (Pavone 2005). Understanding that courts do undeniably have the power to intercede in decisions involving personal rights citing Constitutional precedence, could laws precluding abortions still be justified despite of what many consider an egregious encroachment on the civil rights of women? After all, constitutional rights are not absolute.

Why shouldn’t the federal government be concerned with protecting the rights of persons yet to be born? The Fourteenth Amendment definitively answers this question. The Amendment begins by referring to “All persons born . in the United States” (“Fourteenth Amendment”, 2011), signifying that the protections guaranteed by the Constitution refer to those persons who have already been ‘born.’ When many people criticize the Roe judgment, they base their opposition entirely on moral grounds but lawyers, scholars, and particularly judges who denounce the high court’s decision should do so based only on constitutional grounds.

If they wish to voice their moral concerns they should draw a clear distinction between the legal and moral objections. The legal argument in opposition to the decision should address both the Fourteenth and the Ninth Amendment which states, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” (“Bill of Rights”, 2011). Persons opposing legalized abortions have stated that the ninth, and all other amendments, does not expressly refer to an abortion procedure consequently the Constitution does not apply when attempting to establish the legitimacy of abortion rights.

This point of view, however, very apparently contradicts the statement of the Ninth Amendment which undoubtedly promotes the recognition of abortion rights and all other personal rights in addition to what is specifically contained in the Constitutio