South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

South St. Louis County News

St. Louis Call Newspapers

Supreme Court’s duty is to interpret Constitution’s ‘original’ meaning

To the editor:

The following is my response to the article by Erin Achenbach that appeared in the May 26 edition of St. Louis Call.

The 1973 Supreme Court ruling making abortion legal was not a Constitutional Right. That’s the whole reason why it is being reviewed 50 years later and re-evaluated. To explain this further, there is nothing in the Constitution about abortion in the first place. To say that there is involves taking an activist approach to this document as opposed to an originalist approach. The latter involves interpreting the Constitution based on the original intent on those who wrote it. In other words, the court’s job is to explain further, clarify, and elaborate on what the founders meant by what is actually written in the Constitution.

Furthermore, if there is no specific or direct reference to the issue in question being adjudicated, then the matter reverts back to the states for deliberation and ruling. This is what is in the Constitution according to the 10th Amendment. If the proper and appropriate originalist approach was taken to the abortion issue back in 1973, this is what would have been done. This would have allowed the citizens in each state to vote and decide on this issue. Instead, the Supreme Court took an activist approach and determined that a woman’s “right to privacy” took precedence over the right of the unborn fetus, meaning young human or child growing within her body. 

The exclusive focus on the rights of the woman or mother allowed the matter of the unborn child’s rights to be completely subverted and disregarded. 

Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to consider how to preserve and uphold the right to life in all stages of human life rather than be worried about whether women had more or less access to the means to destroy it? Wouldn’t it be to our advantage as a society to promote a culture of life instead of a culture of death?

For everyone’s sake, wouldn’t alternatives to abortion be better than continuing to allow killing to be the solution to the unwanted pregnancy? If we discount and eradicate the most vulnerable among us by the millions — largely for the sake of convenience — and allow ourselves as a society to become complacent and complicit about this, then what will this do to our attitude about human life in general?

Leo J. Makarewicz

Affton

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