Privacy is just a vague concept used by the Founders

Dear Editor,

I suspect the reason the Founders don’t use the word “privacy” in the Constitution is that they considered privacy a settled manner. After all, an English judge in 1644 had made the point that a man’s home is his castle, and our Constitution was built, after all, on centuries of English achievements regarding People’s rights. Maybe they thought they had covered that base in the Ninth Amendment, which declares that rights not specifically enumerated are indeed retained by the People. Of course, in 1787, the People did not include women but I suspect everyone (except perhaps Scalia) believes woman not only got the vote in the early twentieth century but all the benefits of the Bill of Rights.

So why, I wonder, if a man’s home is his castle, a woman, even one lacking real estate, cannot make decisions for the very body in which she lives? Why, if she decides to seek an abortion, must she run a gauntlet of delaying tactics dreamed up by the money-changers of the Right (mostly men) in order to manipulate some religious of the Right (because money-changers look for the numbers of voters their elite group lacks).

And why does it work? Embryos and fetuses are the stages a human goes through in order to become a human at birth. If the barriers did not cause delay an abortion would in most cases precede consciousness (late-term abortion is almost always an issue of the mother’s or the baby-to-be’s health; it is particularly outrageous to interfere in the patient-doctor relationship).

Believe me, pro-Choice folks love babies as much as anti-Choice people (therefore I resent the blockers usurping “pro-Life”). Susan Sarandon protested barriers to abortion while eight months pregnant. I shook my head when Billie Jean got an abortion because of her tennis schedule (wonder if she ever “misses” that child who would be almost forty today, I reckon).

Perhaps if the word “privacy” was shown to be the very underpinning of that vague concept, “freedom” people would rally to its defense. As it is, I could never vote for a politician sanctimoniously stating s/he is Pro-life (when s/he is really anti-Choice). First, that poll, by refusing to accept the established law of Roe v Wade could make a career of simply attacking any established law pollsters say are unpopular in his or her gerrymandered district (the Affordable Care Act, for example). That’s not governing.  That’s simply posturing to win elections.

Sincerely

Sandy Miley

Sherrill, N.Y.