More on Palin’s Incoherence

Paul Campos has a great analysis over at Lawyers, Guns & Money with respect to the incoherence of Sara Palin’s response to Katie Couric’s question about Supreme Court decisions. Couric asks about whether Palin believes the Constitution protects a right to privacy and then asks, other than Roe, what Supreme Court decisions Palin disagrees with.

Palin’s response is mush: believes the Constitution protects a right to privacy, thinks Roe v. Wade should be decided at the state level, and in any case Palin wouldn’t be in a position to change any of this stuff anyway.

This response is a mess, for starters, because the right to privacy protected by the federal Constitution is the cornerstone of the holding in Roe v. Wade and, as such, has been attacked mercilessly by conservative analysts. Any time you hear legal analysts sneering about “penumbras” in the Constitution, that’s what they’re going after — they don’t see ‘privacy’ in the Constitutional text, so it’s not protected under the Constitution; is the rationale. While most folks shrug this off in terms of the abortion debate, their ears tend to perk up if the discussion moves on to Griswold v. Connecticut, the holding of which is also founded on a federal Constitutional right to privacy — the holding in that case was that this federal right to privacy prevented the federal government from criminalizing the purchase of contraception by married couples. In any event, Palin’s assertion that she agrees there is a federal right to privacy is inconsistent with most attacks on Roe v. Wade.

More fundamental, however, is her assertion that abortion regulation should be a state issue. How can this be reconciled with a belief that abortion is murder — so much so that, according to Palin’s position, women must carry even their rapists’ babies to term? If abortion is murder, then it’s ridiculous to allow states to decide that murder is permissible.

Update CBS asked Biden the same questions – the responses below the fold:

BIDEN

Katie Couric: Why do you think Roe v. Wade was a good decision?

Joe Biden: Because it’s as close to a consensus that can exist in a society as heterogeneous as ours. What does it say? It says in the first three months that decision should be left to the woman. And the second three months, where Roe v. Wade says, well then the state, the government has a role, along with the women’s health, they have a right to have some impact on that. And the third three months they say the weight of the government’s input is on the fetus being carried.

And so that’s sort of reflected as close as anybody is ever going to get in this heterogeneous, this multicultural society of religious people as to some sort of, not consensus, but as close it gets.

I think the liberty clause of the 14th Amendment … offers a right to privacy. Now that’s one of the big debates that I have with my conservative scholar friends, that they say, you know, unless a right is enumerated – unless it’s actually, unless [it] uses the word “privacy” in the Constitution – then no such “constitutional right” exists. Well, I think people have an inherent right.

Couric: Are there Supreme Court decisions you disagree with?

Biden: You know, I’m the guy who wrote the Violence Against Women Act. And I said that every woman in America, if they are beaten and abused by a man, should be able to take that person to court – meaning you should be able to go to federal court and sue in federal court the man who abused you if you can prove that abuse. But they said, “No, that a woman, there’s no federal jurisdiction.” And I held, they acknowledged, I held about 1,000 hours of hearings proving that there’s an effect in interstate commerce.
Women who are abused and beaten and beaten are women who are not able to be in the work force. And the Supreme Court said, “Well, there is an impact on commerce, but this is federalizing a private crime and we’re not going to allow it.” I think the Supreme Court was wrong about that decision.

PALIN

Couric Why, in your view, is Roe v. Wade a bad decision?

Sarah Palin: I think it should be a states’ issue not a federal government-mandated, mandating yes or no on such an important issue. I’m, in that sense, a federalist, where I believe that states should have more say in the laws of their lands and individual areas. Now, foundationally, also, though, it’s no secret that I’m pro-life that I believe in a culture of life is very important for this country. Personally that’s what I would like to see, um, further embraced by America.

Couric: Do you think there’s an inherent right to privacy in the Constitution?

Palin: I do. Yeah, I do.

Couric: The cornerstone of Roe v. Wade.

Palin: I do. And I believe that individual states can best handle what the people within the different constituencies in the 50 states would like to see their will ushered in an issue like that.

Couric: What other Supreme Court decisions do you disagree with?

Palin: Well, let’s see. There’s, of course in the great history of America there have been rulings, that’s never going to be absolute consensus by every American. And there are those issues, again, like Roe v. Wade, where I believe are best held on a state level and addressed there. So you know, going through the history of America, there would be others but …

Couric: Can you think of any?

Palin: Well, I could think of … any again, that could be best dealt with on a more local level. Maybe I would take issue with. But, you know, as mayor, and then as governor and even as a vice president, if I’m so privileged to serve, wouldn’t be in a position of changing those things but in supporting the law of the land as it reads today.