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Originally Posted by Ghostwriter
I oppose "gay marriage" but believe it is the States right to make whatever laws they believe is in the best interest of the people who live within their borders so long as these laws do not disregard or trample on the Bill of Rights. So, in that same vain, I believe it is perfectly fine for a State to outlaw abortion and/or limit its scope. I do not believe that laws of one state should/would necessarily bind other states.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghostwriter
Where? The Bill of Rights are the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution. Which one gives a woman the right to choose?
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Why the Bill of Rights? It's not a super-Constitution; it's part of the Constitution, no more and no less important or binding, legally speaking.
The right to choose, according to the Supreme Court, is guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, though the case law on that issue, and on the broader right to privacy, sometimes invoke the Ninth Amendment. That amendment, which is part of the Bill of Rights, states that the fact that only some rights are enumerated in the Bill of Rights doesn't mean that the government can violate other, non-enumerated rights that the people have.
I agree, though, with what some others have said: that this is an issue made much more complicated by the way civil marriage and religious marriage are intertwined and entangled in our current system. I think that's why this isn't the problem in, say, Catholic Spain that it can be here -- in Spain, a civil marriage is a completely seperate thing from a religious marriage, and the civil marriage is the only one that has any legal effect. Here, a religious marriage has legal effect.
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