Can't someone point me to the words in the constitution that says I can breathe? Drink water? Walk? Tuck my kids in at night? Life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?
This idea that the bill of rights was an exhaustive list of the rights that we the people have is exactly why many of the framers opposed their inclusion. It's why the ninth amendment was included. It's true the court has read the 9th amendment out of the constitution, as have many other people, but it was included for a reason and the very thing that the bought and paid for conservative SCOTUS is doing right now was feared by Hamilton and others.
Don't believe me? Read
Federalist 84.
Here's the salient part, but this is merely an excerpt. Please read the whole thing. What you will find is that the Constitution was never intended to enumerate every single minutiae. It's less than 5,000 words. Bill Simmons could barely get through the first quarter of an NBA playoff game with that word count.
Quote:
The most considerable of the remaining objections is that the plan of the convention contains no bill of rights. Among other answers given to this, it has been upon different occasions remarked that the constitutions of several of the States are in a similar predicament. I add that New York is of the number. And yet the opposers of the new system, in this State, who profess an unlimited admiration for its constitution, are among the most intemperate partisans of a bill of rights. To justify their zeal in this matter, they allege two things: one is that, though the constitution of New York has no bill of rights prefixed to it, yet it contains, in the body of it, various provisions in favor of particular privileges and rights, which, in substance amount to the same thing; the other is, that the Constitution adopts, in their full extent, the common and statute law of Great Britain, by which many other rights, not expressed in it, are equally secured.
...
But a minute detail of particular rights is certainly far less applicable to a Constitution like that under consideration, which is merely intended to regulate the general political interests of the nation, than to a constitution which has the regulation of every species of personal and private concerns. If, therefore, the loud clamors against the plan of the convention, on this score, are well founded, no epithets of reprobation will be too strong for the constitution of this State. But the truth is, that both of them contain all which, in relation to their objects, is reasonably to be desired.
I go further, and affirm that bills of rights, in the sense and to the extent in which they are contended for, are not only unnecessary in the proposed Constitution, but would even be dangerous. They would contain various exceptions to powers not granted; and, on this very account, would afford a colorable pretext to claim more than were granted. For why declare that things shall not be done which there is no power to do? Why, for instance, should it be said that the liberty of the press shall not be restrained, when no power is given by which restrictions may be imposed? I will not contend that such a provision would confer a regulating power; but it is evident that it would furnish, to men disposed to usurp, a plausible pretense for claiming that power. They might urge with a semblance of reason, that the Constitution ought not to be charged with the absurdity of providing against the abuse of an authority which was not given, and that the provision against restraining the liberty of the press afforded a clear implication, that a power to prescribe proper regulations concerning it was intended to be vested in the national government. This may serve as a specimen of the numerous handles which would be given to the doctrine of constructive powers, by the indulgence of an injudicious zeal for bills of rights.
The conservative movement doesn't really believe in limiting their interpretation of the constitution to the text itself, as evidenced by Alito's reliance on "history" for his opinion in Dobbs. Lots of things happened in history, so let's stop pretending that the conservative movement is strict constructionist when they are picking and choosing what they like. It was several decades after the constitution was drafted before the first state began to limit abortion (beyond ~15-20 weeks). Almost all of the delegates who signed the Constitution died before that state limited abortion.
I do hold out hope that something good may come from this terrible decision and miscarriage of justice. Perhaps it will galvanize people to vote out politicians who aren't serving their interests. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out by Diablo and others, we are going to experience the deprivation of rights for a lot of women for some period of time, elevated maternal mortality, and numerous other terrible consequences.
I feel bad for poor women stuck in ****hole states because they are going to suffer most of the negative consequences, which I guess to Alito's ultimate point is deeply rooted in the history of the US. So I guess he was right about that.
