Letter: The right to choose

Roe vs Wade was argued in Texas by Texas lawyers in front of Texas judges. When the Supremes upheld the Texas trial court, they not only tossed out Texas’s abortion law, but all state abortion laws as being unconstitutional for one profoundly simple reason: The Constitution does not prohibit abortion.

Abortion needn’t be mentioned (much less “allowed” or “protected”) in the Constitution because it was legal in every state when the Constitution was adopted. Reproductive rights were an assumed right by the Framers. Abortion came to be banned by some states starting in 1820.

All of those state bans were overturned by Roe because “That which is not prohibited is permitted,” ie. protected as a natural right by the Constitution. Other Constitutionally permitted rights (ownership of chattel slaves) have been eliminated by Constitutional Amendment. Likewise, abortion would have to be banned by a Constitutional Amendment, not banned by an activist judge pretending that reproductive rights were ever considered unconstitutional by the Founders or that every natural right would have to be listed in the Constitution.

Chip Northrup