Why isn't it possible that pvn may be making a judgement on morality? The whole discussion comes down to just one thing: Is the fetus a human life. If it is, "right to privacy" is absolutely irrelevant. If it's not, right to privacy is still irrelevant.

Its not nittery. One can kill a cow. One can kill your enemy in a field of battle but neither of these is typically described as murder. Just because something dies due to a volitional act does not make the act murder.

For fun you should read the old testament. In the old testament if you kill the slave belonging to another person, you must give that person economic recompense (you dont pay with your life). More discussion of abortion as related to old testament http://www.religioustolerance.org/abo_biblh.htm

Here is part of Scalia's dissenting opinion from Troxel v. Granville, a case about child-rearing rights:
I think his reasoning applies equally well to abortion.

Erm, the word "unwarranted" itself means "wrong" or "unjust."

Saying murder is wrong is like saying circles are round or a straight line is uncurved. It is simply pointless redundancy.

Like I said, a more appropriate question would be: what makes a given act of killing an act of murder (wrongful killing)?

And I am saying the question is worded poorly because the use of the word "murder" already denotes an unjustified or wrong act. The why is because it is by its very definition. There is never such a thing, by definition, as justified murder.

The "what" and the "why" are two distinct questions.

Sure, I agree that there are potentially bigger issues at play with regards to abortion. However, there is a political and legal history for the question of abortion, and so in the context of the US, it makes perfect sense to ask a politician (as in the example Nichlemm gave of Palin) why he or she believes Roe was wrongly decided.

I think it's important to recognize that the establishment of the right to privacy as a constitutional right, for good or ill, did not emerge with Roe.

But, as I said, I think pvn is a relativist and a subjectivist. He doesn't think his morality has validity for other people (because it is merely a preference structure). Ergo, he has to be making a lot of assumptions about the status of the fetus to say that talk of a right to privacy isn't in play.

Also, it's not at all clear that the fetus being the kind of thing called "a human life" means it is wrong to kill it.

It really doesnt. Like, not at all.

This argument is disingenuous given Marbury, to which Justice Scalia presumably subscribes if he is willing to act as Supreme Court Justice at all. It's doubly disingenuous given his respect for original intent. The Framers plainly intended that all rights not expressly granted to the federal government by the Constitution were to be construed to be outside its purview. If he lacks the power to use judicial review to act on an unenumerated right even though the Framers included the 9th Amendment expressly for the purpose of ensuring that the Bill of Rights would not be read as enumerating the only rights retained, he lacks the power to use judicial review at all.

Not only is it "not at all clear" its patently false, with a cursory glance at reality. False in a subjective way, of course, in case you happen to be extreme Buddhists.

Could you elaborate?

Determining that someone "is a human being" is like step i along the path of determining whether it is permissible to kill that person or not.

I'm not really sure what you're talking about, all I'm saying is using the word "privacy" here is really disingenuous. In fact, it's considerably sneakier than other "code word" type usages because it has other politically-relevant uses.

EG: When ashcroft was nominated for AG way back in the day, I got into a discussion with some people about him, and one person mentioned he "sucks" on topics such as "privacy". She meant abortion, but I had happened to be reading some of his positions on things like key escrow (which IMO is much more relevant for an attorney general) and told her she was off her rocker. Hilarity ensued.

FWIW, pre-9/11 ashcroft was a lot different than post-9/11 ashcroft IMO. Also, I didn't realize that I was a voluntaryist then.

privacy n. 1. the state or condition of being free from being observed or disturbed by other people

When did you realize it?

In any case I think it's reasonable to not read the 9th Amendment as the source of any specific rights; there's enough ambiguity there to at least make that argument. When I was still a statist I used to say that the Constitution should be rewritten from scratch because it is a flawed document, in part because of its ambiguity.

Agreed.

YUP

Step 1: Is the thing, a fertilized egg, a human being. If yes, why?
If not, at what point does it become one?

If you can't solve Step 1, why discuss justifiable human killing? After all, if your position is the thing ain't human, that is all just conversation.

Step 1: No.

Viability outside of the womb is the threshold.

FYP

Note that using that particular threshold means that when someone becomes a "person" depends on your location in space and time (i.e. your proximity to modern medical technology), which seems suspicious to me.

Fair enough, but I was just plucking out the sink or swim point.

Parasite:
An organism that grows, feeds, and is sheltered on or in a different organism while contributing nothing to the survival of its host.

Murder is wrong because it denies us the natural rights we discovered through the use of reason.

Your example might be interesting and meaningful in some discussion, but it's completely irrelevant in this debate as to whether or not the right to privacy is not "disingenuous" when determining whether or not someone has a right to terminate their pregnancy. DUCY?

I mean you're right, some people use "privacy" as proxy for "abortion", and sometimes that might be disingenuous, ie, the person in question doesn't actually care about privacy at all or has no consistent belief in it, but what in the world does that have to do with whether or not the right to privacy exists in the Constitution and whether or not the right to terminate a pregnancy is part and parcel of that right to privacy?

What if we found a study that said parents live longer than non-parents? I don't know of such a study, but I know there is research that being married can extend your life expectancy, and there is research that says being happy can extend your life expectancy.

I'd guess it was a biological definition of survival, not the Oprah definition of survival.

Also, I would imagine the deaths and complications from pregnancy and childbirth >> the touchy feely gonna live forever now that I have children thing.