Let’s remind Joe Scarborough on Constitution Day that abortion isn’t a constitutional right

Constitution Day is a celebration of the ratification of one of America’s founding documents, established in 1911 before becoming officially recognized in 2004. It was originally titled “I Am American Day” and later “Citizenship Day” before receiving its official moniker. It is a day to celebrate the signing of the Constitution by the Founding Fathers, reminding Americans of our roots as a nation. 

Unfortunately, it also is a day that shows the ignorance of those who would affirm the wholesale slaughter of the preborn. 

Case in point: earlier this month, MSNBC host Joe Scarborough went on one of his well-known tirades that was originally discussing vaccine mandates, only for him to turn and attack the pro-life movement. He erroneously claimed that those who support the Texas Heartbeat Act are opposing a “specifically enumerated constitutional right.” 

This is a tired argument that the pro-abortion movement has tried to make thanks to the wrongful interpretation of the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, but it shows the ignorance of the pro-abortion activists on the very document that, in fact, guarantees the safety of the preborn. 

To start, Scarborough seems to misunderstand what the word “enumerated” means. As Hot Air columnist Ed Morrissey points out, “‘Enumerated’ means a right explicitly stated, such as the right to free speech, the right to keep and bear arms, the right to free expression of religion, and so on.” He explains, “the word ‘abortion’ has no mention in the document.”

Despite this lack of textual support, the abortion lobby has tried to push this idea following the landmark Supreme Court ruling ‘Roe v. Wade.’ 

READ: FACT CHECK: Is abortion an enumerated constitutional right?

As Live Action News reported previously, “In 1973, the Supreme Court erroneously ruled in Roe v. Wade that abortion is a constitutional right covered under the right to privacy in the Fourth Amendment. But, as Brian Clowes, Ph.D. pointed out in an article for Human Life International, it takes a loose reading of the Fourth Amendment to find a right to kill. The word ‘privacy’ isn’t even present in the amendment. Clowes wrote, ‘the Supreme Court literally conjured [the right to abortion] out of thin air.’”

Since the Roe v. Wade ruling, several courts have used it as a “precedent” to maintain the legality of abortion as a Constitutional right, but as many in the pro-life movement point out, this is an incorrect interpretation of the Founding document. 

Josh Craddock, former editor in chief of the Harvard Journal of Law and Affiliated Scholar at the James Wilson Institute, points out in the video “Pro-Life Replies: Abortion Is A Constitutional Right” that the Constitution protects the preborn. 

The Pro-Life Reply to: "Abortion is a Constitutional Right"

Craddock notes that even Justice Harry Blackmun, who wrote the opinion for Roe v. Wade, admitted that if “personhood” could be established for the preborn, then children in the womb would be guaranteed protections under the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. 

The Fourteenth Amendment was established following the Civil War to protect persons from being deprived of “life, liberty, or property, without due process of law” and guaranteed “equal protection under the law” — which should be applied to the preborn. 

Craddock explains, “According to dictionaries of common and legal usage at the time of the Fourteenth Amendment’s adoption, the term ‘person’ was largely interchangeable with ‘human being…. There was no distinction between biological human life and legal personhood.”

“Centuries of English common law tradition consistently treated abortion as the wrongful killing of a human being,” he said. “The states widely recognized unborn children as persons. Nearly every state had criminal legislation prohibiting abortion, and at least 28 jurisdictions labeled abortion as an ‘offense against the person.'” 

Craddock notes that the authors of the Fourteenth Amendment “expected the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantees of equal protection and due process to protect every member of the human species within United States jurisdiction.”

With this in mind, it is important for the pro-life movement to continue to bring attention to this flaw in the abortion lobby’s thinking. 

Conservative commentator Josh Hammer states, “A greater widespread adoption and public dissemination of the ‘abortion is outright unconstitutional’ argument has the incidental effect of establishing an outer Overton window boundary of permissible opinion on the subject….” 

In other words, continue to shout “abortion is unconstitutional” to combat the lies being disseminated by the abortion lobby. The facts are on the pro-life side. 

Joe Scarborough is a former lawmaker and a TV personality, giving his meanderings a certain amount of weight, even if they declare there is a non-existent “enumerated” right to abortion. But as we can easily deduce, that is not the case based on the plethora of evidence. 

On this year’s Constitution Day, let us remind ourselves that our Founding document does not support the wholesale slaughter of the preborn. The Constitution protects life and liberty, especially of the children in the womb. 

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