Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by newbusox 5226 days ago
It's important to remember that the federal Constitution and rulings by the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution represent the floor of permissible action, not the ceiling. So, although there exists a somewhat amorphous "right to privacy" that has been applied to things like abortions, sex, contraception, and other things, this is not to say that Congress or state governments couldn't pass laws that further increase these rights. In fact, many state constitutions provide vastly more protections for their citizens than the federal Constitution does (specificaly becasue almost all states became states prior to the incorporation of the Bill of Rights to the states).

Point being, presuming that something is not a "right" or even a "fundamental right" simply becasue it does not exist in the Constitution or hasn't been interpreted to be included in it is, in my mind, a miscontruing of our federalist system. You could conceive of every state passing legislation permitting abortions (or not making abortions illegal) and have the same result as Roe. Similarly, if Congress has the power to pass a "Privacy Bill of Rights" as normal legislation (i.e. through the commerce clause), this would effectively "increase" the rights everyone has. If Congress wanted to pass a law (again, presuming that they had the power to--which is the underlying issue here) saying something like "everyone has a right to privacy," or criminalizing entities who impinge on people's privacy, this would also effectively increase the rights of everyone, subject to Congress changing its mind in the future.