A 1792 case reveals that key Founders saw abortion as a private matter [View all]

[LetMyPeopleVote]

Alito's only support for his opinion was a witch hunter who believed in/advocated for marital rape. Here is some authority that Alito was too stupid to find or use

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/07/19/1792-case-reveals-that-key-founders-saw-abortion-private-matter/?pwapi_token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJzdWJpZCI6IjM4MjMyODIzIiwicmVhc29uIjoiZ2lmdCIsIm5iZiI6MTY1ODU2MjA5NSwiaXNzIjoic3Vic2NyaXB0aW9ucyIsImV4cCI6MTY1OTc3MTY5NSwiaWF0IjoxNjU4NTYyMDk1LCJqdGkiOiI0MDZjNjg4ZC1hODI2LTQ0ZWMtOGQ2Zi0zNDAwMjI3NDhiNDAiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL3d3dy53YXNoaW5ndG9ucG9zdC5jb20vbWFkZS1ieS1oaXN0b3J5LzIwMjIvMDcvMTkvMTc5Mi1jYXNlLXJldmVhbHMtdGhhdC1rZXktZm91bmRlcnMtc2F3LWFib3J0aW9uLXByaXZhdGUtbWF0dGVyLyJ9.3Oz4ziKkJBN2tEYVnpVZn6nAAc14004UAhTbvAbyhAM

A basic premise of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization was that the Constitution can protect the right to abortion only if it is “deeply rooted in our history and traditions.” This statement complements Justice Amy Coney Barrett’s concept of originalism, or the idea that the court should interpret the Constitution by trying to infer “the meaning that it had at the time people ratified it.”

Alito’s evidence that abortion was always considered a criminal act, and thus something the Constitution should not protect, consisted of a single criminal case that was prosecuted in 1652 in the (Catholic) colony of Maryland. He then jumped ahead to laws that states enacted, mostly in the mid-to-late-19th century, to criminalize abortion. This cursory survey of abortion in early America was hardly complete, especially because it ignored the history of abortion in the years in which the Constitution was drafted and ratified.....

Therefore, the more historically accurate conclusion is Justice Harry A. Blackmun’s majority opinion in Roe v. Wade (1973), that “at the time of the adoption of our Constitution, and throughout the majority of the 19th century, abortion was viewed with less disfavor than under most American statutes currently in effect. Phrasing it another way, a woman enjoyed a substantially broader right to terminate a pregnancy than she does in most States today. ”

Though Marshall’s notes on Commonwealth v. Randolph are extensive, this episode is poorly documented in the county court records, and, thus, no formal case law was generated. Regardless, the episode begs examination as it involved key Founders who occupied vastly different positions on the political spectrum, both nationally and in Virginia. The Federalist Marshall believed in a strong national government. Jefferson mostly supported a decentralized system. Henry was a populist. Yet all three tacitly agreed that abortion in this case was a private matter, not a criminal act worthy of further investigation and prosecution. In a remarkable coda, Nancy went on to marry Gouverneur Morris of New York, an influential signer of the Constitution, who was well aware of her backstory.

If anything, the saga demonstrates that the concept of abortion as a private matter was “deeply rooted” in the minds of our nation’s Founders. As Americans consider their next move on the abortion issue at the state level, they should be mindful of the precedents followed by these early giants of our republic.