Letters to the Editor: Abortion isn’t the only right at risk under the Supreme Court’s ‘originalists’
![Abortion protesters pray together in front of the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 1.](https://ca-times.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2d840f1/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5440x3627+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/75/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcalifornia-times-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fa3%2F38%2Fb9367eac4d1a8245885991e77421%2Fsupreme-court-abortion-94492.jpg)
To the editor: Columnist Robin Abcarian is correct regarding the Mississippi abortion case’s probable effect on Roe vs. Wade, but she misses the larger overall agenda the Supreme Court’s radical justices are pushing.
Their “four corners” argument — that states may legitimately deny any right that is not specifically enumerated in the Constitution — means that other notable landmark cases on everything from LGBTQ rights to interracial marriage to a couple’s right to practice birth control are now theirs to re-adjudicate. They ignore the 9th Amendment, which says that the “enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”
These unelected radicals on the court are actively substituting their personal beliefs for Americans’ “inalienable rights.”
John Gallogly, Los Angeles
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To the editor: Abortion is the single greatest moral issue of our time, just as slavery was in the past. And, like slavery, it is an issue that will never go away until we recognize it as an evil that can have no place in any humane society.
How can we celebrate the medical miracle of the preemie delivered just shy of 22 weeks and claim at the same time that, if we had so chosen, we could just as well have killed that infant? Is it our choice that determines if a baby is a human being?
Abortion is the big lie of our age, and I am grateful that our Supreme Court may at last correct the record and expose it for what it is.
Robert Rakauskas, Winnetka
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To the editor: I applaud Abcarian’s thoughtful comments on the abortion debate. So much has been said as we teeter on the brink of dragging women’s rights back into the dark ages of back-alley, life-threatening abortions.
How do men fit into this? Despite the fact that men are intimately involved in causing pregnancy, listening to the current debate one would think that every conception is immaculate.
Who is urging men to be responsible about using contraceptives? Better yet, where are proposals to make men liable financially for 50% of the expense required to care for and educate a child to the age of 18?
Unless my sex education is really out of date, it takes two to tango. Why then are women often the ones left desperate and solely responsible, while men notch their belts and slink away?
Anne Hormann, Pasadena
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To the editor: Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, I have now become a single-issue voter. I will never even consider a candidate who does not support a women’s right to choose above all else.
I hope there is such severe backlash from the attempts to overturn Roe vs. Wade that the only way a Republican politician sees the inside of the House, Senate or White House is as a tourist.
I have advised my daughter, who will soon graduate from UCLA, to be thoughtful about where she moves in the country since in many states she will not be considered an equal member of society.
Lisa Shook, Huntington Beach