Marsha Blackburn butchers the ninth amendment.
Marsha Blackburn got her ‘15 minutes’ this week with her lying and scurrilous attacks on Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Among the low-lights of her haranguing of the ABA’s “well qualified” jurist was her demand that Jackson define ‘woman’. Note: the ABA had ranked Jackson so highly because the 250 legal professionals it interviewed, noted her integrity, even-handed nature, and exceptional competence — and that her "intellect is simply formidable." Which is something Blackburn will never be accused of.
Especially after she tweeted this week that “The Constitution grants us the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — not abortions.”
People immediately pointed out that the phrase is in the Declaration of Independence — not the Constitution. Which is par for the Republican course. They have as much knowledge of the nation’s founding documents as they do of the Bible. Not much. And are willing to have them say whatever they want them to say. They can rely on the fact that the base does not believe in fact-checkers and only hears what it wants to hear.
But what did not get as much attention as her misattribution, is her claim that the Constitution does not grant women the right to an abortion. First, the Constitution does not grant rights, it enumerates them. Second, the Founders didn’t write the document to be exhaustive (at 7,762-words it is relatively short). And they knew that the future would bring changes they could not imagine. For example, in 1787 there were no industrial corporations as we know them today.
Bearing that in mind they included the 9th amendment which made it clear that there were unenumerated rights. The text reads, "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people." And in 1973, the Supreme Court decided one of those unenumerated rights was the right to an abortion
Further, consider that in the early days if the US abortion was legal up until ‘the quickening’ (fetal movements that occurred between 15 and 20 weeks— a standard shared by many religions.) It wasn’t until the late 1800s that religious buttinskis started interfering in what had previously been accepted as a woman’s right.
In short, the Founders would have wondered why there were so many ignoramuses today misinterpreting what they wrote — or just making stuff up. Had they known that the people would elect so many of these Dunning-Kruger victims to Congress they probably would have mandated an IQ test as part of the qualifications for office. Except that the IQ test was not invented until 1904.