Remembering the 9th Amendment
Submitted by Rob Williams on Mon, 04/23/2007 – 1:38pm.
Thanks to “Alternet” for this important book review.
The “Silent” Ninth Amendment Gives Americans Rights They Don’t Know They Have
By Daniel A. Farber, Basic Books
Posted on April 23, 2007, Printed on April 23, 2007
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What a pity. Even more, what a terrible oversight: the Ninth Amendment bears directly on such modern-day constitutional issues as abortion, the right to die, and gay rights.
The Ninth Amendment is key to understanding how the Founding Fathers thought about the liberties they expected Americans to enjoy under the Constitution. They did not believe that they were creating these liberties in the Bill of Rights. Instead, they were merely acknowledging some of the rights that no government could properly deny.
The history of the Constitution reveals the purpose of the Ninth and the Founders’ intent: to protect what constitutional lawyers call unenumerated rights — those rights the Founder assumed and felt no need to specify in the Bill of Rights. Unenumerated rights include, for example, the right to privacy. In the America of today, unenumerated rights account for freedoms like a woman’s right to abortion. …
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So the next time any politician talks about a “right”, remind them that the Constitution reserves it to the people and he should shut up!
Reinke Faces Life 