Dr. Knox, you commented, "Well, I'd see abortion as a constitutional right." You have a Ph.D. in literature and have written on literature and psychoanalysis. With respect, what qualifies you to have an opinion about Constitutional interpretation? Jurisprudence is as much a specialized field as medicine, so I have to wonder what makes yo…
Dr. Knox, you commented, "Well, I'd see abortion as a constitutional right." You have a Ph.D. in literature and have written on literature and psychoanalysis. With respect, what qualifies you to have an opinion about Constitutional interpretation? Jurisprudence is as much a specialized field as medicine, so I have to wonder what makes you, as a legal lay person, believe you have any more right to an opinion about how the U.S. Constitution and our federal system works than a medical lay person would have a right to an opinion about which antibiotic to use for a specific infection? There is no shame in a non-specialist having an appropriate sense of humility about his or her understandable limitations. There is no reason you SHOULD have an opinion about the Constitution, any more than I (a non physician) should have an opinion about medicine. But I would therefore never presume to write an article about pharmacology.
Actually, both the fourth and fourteenth amendments have been interpreted as protecting the right to abortion: tps://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/right-to-an-abortion
As a practicing Constitutional attorney for over 30 years, who has litigated Constitutional questions in federal court, I am certainly aware of the Court's decisions on that topic. And appropriately qualified people can, and have, offered a variety of opinions about the subject. My question is what give YOU a qualification to have an opinion, one way or the other, as to which argument is better grounded in the Constitution?
I'm sure you have opinions about all kinds of things outside of your profession about which you're well-informed. It's possible to be well-informed about the law without being a lawyer. Any citizen can read and form an opinion about the Constitution--and many do.
No, it is not true that any citizen can read and form a meaningful opinion about the Constitution, any more than any citizen can read and form a meaningful opinion about a medical journal article. Even explicit words and phrases in the Constitution do not always have the same meaning they might have in everyday 21st Century speech and require a great deal of context (about both the words themselves and the about way the Constitution functions) to understand in a meaningful way, and the present issue (abortion) is even more difficult because it involves a concept that is NOT found in any of the explicit words of the Constitution. Even when we have text to read, its meaning is not always clear or intuitive: the full meaning of text as seemingly clear as "freedom of speech" and "free exercise of religion" is not clear without a great deal of background (what speech is protected by the First Amendment is one of the more complex areas of jurisprudence, and the meaning of freedom of religion is even more difficult to apply) and the issue of abortion is even less transparent since there is no text to read at all; understanding the Constitutional implications of a non-textual concept such as abortion requires a deep understanding of the way the Constitution works, our federal system, subtle legal concepts and theories layered upon each other, and hundreds of years of legal history, none of which can be obtained simply by reading the Constitution itself.
Earlier, someone gave this link: https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-yale-law-professor-who-is-anti. It is to a podcast of an interview of Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale university, where he teaches Constitutional law. He himself is openly pro-choice, but is also "anti-Wade," as they put it. It's an interesting listen.
I disagree with you there Dan. This article clearly labeled an opinion piece, and Knox is an American citizen. Therefore she, like all voting citizens, has a voice in the law of our country, regardless of expertise.
Every American citizen has a voice in the POLITICAL process and the right to say -- and vote -- what she feels the law SHOULD be. But this article is not that. This is not an article about what laws our legislatures (federal and state) should enact regarding a particular topic; it is an article that purports to comment on what the law IS -- i.e., what the Constitution says with regard to a particular topic -- and that is a subject requiring specialized background to interpret and understand.
And to the extent the article expresses an opinion about what the Supreme Court should do -- as opposed to what the legislature should do -- that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the function and purpose of the Court. The Supreme Court should NOT be influenced by public opinion; indeed the Court's function in our system of checks-and-balances is to act as a restraint on public opinion. The public, through their elected representatives, enact the laws; the Supreme Court's function is to say, if needed, "No, you may not do that, the Constitution prevents it," and that decision by the Court must be based on the text and context of the Constitution, and nothing else.
There are plenty of times in our history when a majority would have been glad to use their numerical power and political strength to oppress a minority (either a minority population or a minority opinion); the Constitution and Supreme Court are the checks on that abuse, and for that system to work the Court MUST ignore public opinion and look to nothing but the Constitution. Citizens have a voice in what laws are enacted, but they do not, cannot, and must not have any voice at all in how the Constitution is interpreted with regard to limits on those laws.
Thank you for this Dan. That was the point of my first comment. The author writes in a manner that displays her fundamental lack of understanding about our system of government. Civics teachers in this country have failed to do their jobs (assuming she was brought up in the US...)
Dr. Knox, you commented, "Well, I'd see abortion as a constitutional right." You have a Ph.D. in literature and have written on literature and psychoanalysis. With respect, what qualifies you to have an opinion about Constitutional interpretation? Jurisprudence is as much a specialized field as medicine, so I have to wonder what makes you, as a legal lay person, believe you have any more right to an opinion about how the U.S. Constitution and our federal system works than a medical lay person would have a right to an opinion about which antibiotic to use for a specific infection? There is no shame in a non-specialist having an appropriate sense of humility about his or her understandable limitations. There is no reason you SHOULD have an opinion about the Constitution, any more than I (a non physician) should have an opinion about medicine. But I would therefore never presume to write an article about pharmacology.
Actually, both the fourth and fourteenth amendments have been interpreted as protecting the right to abortion: tps://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution-conan/amendment-5/right-to-an-abortion
As a practicing Constitutional attorney for over 30 years, who has litigated Constitutional questions in federal court, I am certainly aware of the Court's decisions on that topic. And appropriately qualified people can, and have, offered a variety of opinions about the subject. My question is what give YOU a qualification to have an opinion, one way or the other, as to which argument is better grounded in the Constitution?
I'm sure you have opinions about all kinds of things outside of your profession about which you're well-informed. It's possible to be well-informed about the law without being a lawyer. Any citizen can read and form an opinion about the Constitution--and many do.
No, it is not true that any citizen can read and form a meaningful opinion about the Constitution, any more than any citizen can read and form a meaningful opinion about a medical journal article. Even explicit words and phrases in the Constitution do not always have the same meaning they might have in everyday 21st Century speech and require a great deal of context (about both the words themselves and the about way the Constitution functions) to understand in a meaningful way, and the present issue (abortion) is even more difficult because it involves a concept that is NOT found in any of the explicit words of the Constitution. Even when we have text to read, its meaning is not always clear or intuitive: the full meaning of text as seemingly clear as "freedom of speech" and "free exercise of religion" is not clear without a great deal of background (what speech is protected by the First Amendment is one of the more complex areas of jurisprudence, and the meaning of freedom of religion is even more difficult to apply) and the issue of abortion is even less transparent since there is no text to read at all; understanding the Constitutional implications of a non-textual concept such as abortion requires a deep understanding of the way the Constitution works, our federal system, subtle legal concepts and theories layered upon each other, and hundreds of years of legal history, none of which can be obtained simply by reading the Constitution itself.
Earlier, someone gave this link: https://www.commonsense.news/p/the-yale-law-professor-who-is-anti. It is to a podcast of an interview of Akhil Reed Amar, the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale university, where he teaches Constitutional law. He himself is openly pro-choice, but is also "anti-Wade," as they put it. It's an interesting listen.
I disagree with you there Dan. This article clearly labeled an opinion piece, and Knox is an American citizen. Therefore she, like all voting citizens, has a voice in the law of our country, regardless of expertise.
Every American citizen has a voice in the POLITICAL process and the right to say -- and vote -- what she feels the law SHOULD be. But this article is not that. This is not an article about what laws our legislatures (federal and state) should enact regarding a particular topic; it is an article that purports to comment on what the law IS -- i.e., what the Constitution says with regard to a particular topic -- and that is a subject requiring specialized background to interpret and understand.
And to the extent the article expresses an opinion about what the Supreme Court should do -- as opposed to what the legislature should do -- that reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the function and purpose of the Court. The Supreme Court should NOT be influenced by public opinion; indeed the Court's function in our system of checks-and-balances is to act as a restraint on public opinion. The public, through their elected representatives, enact the laws; the Supreme Court's function is to say, if needed, "No, you may not do that, the Constitution prevents it," and that decision by the Court must be based on the text and context of the Constitution, and nothing else.
There are plenty of times in our history when a majority would have been glad to use their numerical power and political strength to oppress a minority (either a minority population or a minority opinion); the Constitution and Supreme Court are the checks on that abuse, and for that system to work the Court MUST ignore public opinion and look to nothing but the Constitution. Citizens have a voice in what laws are enacted, but they do not, cannot, and must not have any voice at all in how the Constitution is interpreted with regard to limits on those laws.
Thank you for this Dan. That was the point of my first comment. The author writes in a manner that displays her fundamental lack of understanding about our system of government. Civics teachers in this country have failed to do their jobs (assuming she was brought up in the US...)