WHERE DOES THE CONSTITUTION STAND?

The Constitution itself, of course, does not mention abortion anywhere in its text. Where then is the basis for the Supreme Court's holding that a woman has a Constitutionally protected right to procure one? The Court held that this right is derived from the right of "marital privacy." This, coincidentally, is another right which is nowhere mentioned in the Constitution. That right was first enunciated by Justice Douglas in his famous opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut in which he proclaimed that he had discerned this right to lie somewhere in the "penumbra" of the Constitution. In other words, he claimed to have found it by reading between the lines.

[From "A Resource Manual"; to be continued]