I was assuming that you would recognize a phrase taken almost verbatim from the Bill of Rights.
Ninth Amendment: The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Do you get that? It means that just because the Constitution lists certain rights it doesn't mean that there aren't a universe of other unlisted rights that are enjoyed by the people of the United States. That's not some "liberal activist" twisting-which evidently means anything you disagree with. It is text from the Constitution itself.
We don't live under a system of codes. Leviticus and Deuteronomy are not the laws of the land, much as some idiots might wish them to be.
Whether you like it or not fortunately the Founders were smart enough to put something in the Constitution that was intended to prevent just the sort of argument that claims that because a right is not specifically listed it can therefore be violated or does not exist. Thus the "right to privacy" can be established both via 5th and 14th amendments but also the 9th amendment.
Even so-called originalists disagree about how far the 9th amendment should go. The Founders left it vague on purpose. So saying the "right to privacy" is not listed in the Constitution misses the point. The point is rather why one would think that a document that goes to great lengths to strictly limit the powers of the states and federal government and lists all sorts of enumerated and unenumerated rights of the individual to be left alone wouldn't recognize a right to privacy.
I realize you subscribe to the line of thinking that supports the assertion women have some inherent "right" to abort their unborn children, that gays have some inherent "right" to marry, and the like. It's debatable, to say the least, whether these so called "rights" really exist.
I seem to remember there being something in the Tenth Amendment of the Constitution about "the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Bottom line, rather than pretend the Constitution says something, or can say something, that it doesn't, things beyond what it says should be left up to the states. Even if you're philosophically "pro-choice," you can't legitimately argue that the case it was founded on really has merit.
Anyway you cut it, to argue that the "right to privacy" statement in the Constitution somehow gives a woman the "right" to have her unborn child killed is beyond ludicrous and is one of the biggest demonstrations of the hypocrisy of the left.
You can't or won't make an substantive argument without personal attacks, unbased assumptions and creation of various straw men. This is funny. For the record as I mentioned upthread I am pro-life. I think abortion is wrong. I also don't believe I've written anything here for or against gay marriage. I'm unsure of the legal/moral arguments about that.
That said, for both gay marriage and abortion, it's not enough to just make an legal argument that boils down to "Eeew. God doesn't like it and I don't either."
From a pure political point of view I certainly hope that conservatives continue to make such inchoate arguments more intensely as the election approaches. They will get their brains beat out in the fall election among independents and women voters. Should Santorum get the nomination, that's a guaranteed win for the President. And considering demographic changes in the South, even places like Texas or Alabama could start to come into play for Democrats in 2016 and 2020. So I think conservatives should back off or at very least rework some of their rhetoric.
The Ninth Amendment already tells us that other rights exist and these are reserved to the people. How can that be any more plain? Because of how the cases were decided it would be difficult to throw abortion back to the states without doing the same thing for contraception. I am sure some conservative "activist" judges would like to do so but I don't see how. They can only rule on the cases brought before them.
These unlisted rights are debatable which is why we have judges to interpret the Constitution. It's not a code. There are conflicting claims and vague generalities contained within.
Conservatives want to shrink government just small enough to fit in a bedroom or a woman's body. This is one of the biggest demonstrations of the hypocrisy of the Right.
"When the snows fall and the white winds blow, the lone wolf dies but the pack survives." Winter is Coming Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky; And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die. As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk, the Law runneth forward and back; For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.
