Rejecting Tomi Lahren's Pink Slime Pro-Choice Perspectives

In offering analysis after President Donald Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh to be on the Supreme Court, Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren opined that conservatives seeking to overturn Roe v. Wade are effectively spitting on the Constitution.

Lahren has been outspoken in her adherence to abortion rights.  She was separated from Glenn Beck's "The Blaze TV" last year because of her inconsistent opinions about abortion.  This was sparked by an appearance on ABC's The View in which she argued that it was hypocritical to be anti-choice and be a small government conservative.    Beck insisted that he wanted to terminate Lahren for lacking intellectual integrity.

“I can’t speak for the company and why they did it, but it had nothing to do with being pro-choice...
What I have a problem with is somebody who will change their point of view or that will say absolutely crazy, red meat things, and not have any intellectual firepower to back it up. Have the intellectual integrity to be able to back things up.”

Now Lahren laments that some conservatives want a Supreme Court to carry out religious judicial activism to get rid of Roe v. Wade (1973).  Tantalizing pro-choice red meat but it like the pink slime substitute which some fast food outlets use to sell dollar menu items to a hungry public even though it causes indigestion.

Lahren assumes that any rollback of Roe would be premised on religious issues.  Even the Roe decision recognizes that government has interests in unborn life in the last trimester that is viable.  Prenatal medicine has made great leaps of advancement so viability is pushed closer to the 20th week of pregnancy.  No signs of religion in this hermaneutic. And that does not even consider the scientific fact that human life begins at the moment of conception

Pro-Choice jurisprudence currently rests on the shaky foundation of abortion as being included in a right to privacy that is within  penumbras and emanations of the Bill of Rights, as applied to states by the Fourteenth Amendment.  Justice Blackmun's holding in Roe is a quintessential example of judicial activism, legislating from the bench for the entire nation.

Conceptually, a texualist originalist led Supreme Court could rule that "the right to privacy" is not enumerated within the Federal Constitution and that the Tenth Amendment is applicable.  This would throw the abortion issue back to the states, where it resided prior to the 1973 judicial fiat.  Some states, like California and New York, would have liberal abortion laws, while other states may be more restrictive.   That sort of subsidiary jurisprudence sounds like small government conservatism.

Maybe Lahren's political science studies at UNLV did not adequately cover jurisprudence.  She seems to think that it is unconstitutional for the Supreme Court to overrule bad precedent or is judicial activism.   In his confirmation hearing to become Chief Justice in 2005, John Roberts noted that stare decisis does not hold as a legal precedent when a matter was wrongly decided.  But in Tomi Lahren's legal logic, Brown v. Board of Education (1954) that overturned the Separate but Equal standard of  Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) was just spitting on the Constitution too. 

It is lamentable that Fox News turns to Tomi Lahren for legal analysis.  In little more than a year, she has shifted her abortion rights advocacy from being premised on what she believes is small government conservatism to combating religious judicial activism.  No wonder she burned her bridge at The Blaze TV for lacking intellectual integrity. 

Some may want to consume pink slime perspectives because they are spicy tasty morsel temptations, but assuredly many leave the establishment when such dreck is  seen on the television menu.

Celebrating Bill of Rights Day

On this date in 1791, the Commonwealth of Virginia was the 12th State to ratify the ten amendments that were then incorporated into our Constitution.

 During the 1787 Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia , the framers were more concerned about how power would be distributed by the national government.  Some of the delegates were concerned that the Constitution did not spell out how the people would be protected from the government’s abuse of power.  So James Madison, the “father” of the Constitution and the author of the Federalist Papers, championed the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, that was modeled after an English Bill of Rights as well as similar Bill authored by Virginia George Mason.

The original resolution presented to Congress included twelve amendments which were not as sharply focused on individual rights.  One provision involved the number of delegates per the population.  The other seemingly stillborn amendment involved Congressional compensation:

No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.

Although this amendment was not ratified as part of the Bill of Rights, this provision was ratified by 3/4ths of the states by Michigan in May, 1992.  Later it was discovered that the Commonwealth of Kentucky’s General Assembly had ratified it in its first month of statehood in 1792 but it had not been applied for 200 years.

As for the Bill of Rights:

• The First Amendment says that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” But this also involves the right to assemble as well as the fundamental freedom of the free exercise of religion.

• The Second Amendment says the people have the right “to keep and bear arms.”

• The Third Amendment says soldiers may not be quartered in our homes without the consent of the owners.

• The Fourth Amendment says the people have the right to be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures.

• The Fifth Amendment says that private property shall not be taken “for public use without just compensation.”

• The Sixth Amendment says that in criminal prosecutions, the person accused is guaranteed a right to trial by jury.

• The Seventh Amendment guarantees the right to a jury trial in civil cases where the controversy “shall exceed twenty dollars.”

• The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishments.

• The Ninth Amendment says that the enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights should not be construed to deny or disparage others “retained by the people.”

• The Tenth Amendment says that the powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states, or to the people.

These are not arcane relics of history.  Every day, Americans practice their freedom of speech and peaceful assembly.  Americans depend on access and the fairness of the judicial system. Our property rights can be challenged by eminent domain abuse.  And ultimately, citizens need to protect their right to bear arms–it’s not about hunting but the ultimate safeguard against the abuse of a tyrannical government.

[This piece originally ran on DCBarroco.US]