Media & Law

As much as I hate, hate, hate the fact that abor­tion has become the lit­mus test for every judge and politi­cian to come down the pike, and thus hate to talk about it, it equally irks me to see news pieces that talk about Roe v. Wade as if it’s an arti­cle in our Con­sti­tu­tion. A CNN arti­cle yes­ter­day said the fol­low­ing:

Alito was ques­tioned exten­sively last week dur­ing his Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion hear­ing about his views on abor­tion, includ­ing the 1973 Roe v. Wade rul­ing that declared abor­tion a fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tional right. He stead­fastly refused to agree with asser­tions by Democ­rats that Roe v. Wade is “set­tled law.”

Now, I’m no lawyer, but I have read RvW. Nowhere in it do I recall see­ing that it’s a “fun­da­men­tal con­sti­tu­tional right.” In fact, the gist of it seemed to be (1) we all have a right to pri­vacy (2) until some­one proves uncon­di­tion­ally that abor­tion is infan­ti­cide, that right to pri­vacy allows a woman to elect to have an abortion.

Arti­cles like CNN’s serve only to muddy an already impos­si­bly mud­dled dis­cus­sion. (And, yes, per­haps the reporter made a mis­take, but it’s one an edi­tor should have caught. No excuses – espe­cially in a day when no-one prints retrac­tions, let alone reads them.)