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 re…
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.
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.