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Obamacare has already been proven unconstitutional…by the Supreme Court

Posted 27 Aug 2009 in Barack Obama, Big Brother, Democrats, healthcare, Obamacare

The last few days have heard a lot from pundits and legal experts alike, all weighing in that Obama’s “health care/heath insurance reform” is unconstitutional. The primary reason give is that the “individual mandate” is unconstitutional, because the government cannot force Americans to buy something they don’t want under the Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution.

But since none of these experts nor pundits are on the Supreme Court, their opinions don’t matter much.

What does matter, however, is judicial precedent.

In the 1992 case Planned Parenthood v. Casey, (505 U.S. 833) the Supreme Court ruled that a Pennsylvania law requiring spousal notification prior to obtaining an abortion was invalid under the Fourteenth Amendment because it “created an undue burden” on married women seeking an abortion.

Former Justice Department Official David Rifkin eloquently addresses this “undue burden” in his Wall Street Journal article, “Is Government Health Care Constitutional?”:

The court’s underlying rationale was not abortion-specific. Rather, the justices posited a constitutionally mandated zone of personal privacy that must remain free of government regulation, except in the most exceptional circumstances. As the court explained…”these matters, involving the most intimate and personal choices a person may make in a lifetime, choices central to personal dignity and autonomy, are central to the liberty protected by the Fourteenth Amendment. At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and the mystery of human life.”

It is, of course, difficult to imagine choices more “central to personal dignity and autonomy” than measures to be taken for the prevention and treatment of disease — measures that may be essential to preserve or extend life itself. Indeed, when the overwhelming moral issues that surround the abortion question are stripped away, what is left is a medical procedure determined to be “necessary” by an expectant mother and her physician.

If the government cannot proscribe — or even “unduly burden,” to use another of the Supreme Court’s analytical frameworks — access to abortion, how can it proscribe access to other medical procedures, including transplants, corrective or restorative surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, or a myriad of other health services that individuals may need or desire?

So much for having a president who’s supposedly a constitutional scholar.

Petard HOIST!

Posted by FullMetalPatriot
12th gen. American, Constitutionalist, Harley-riding Texan, gun owner & NRA member, blogger, illustrator, Florida Gator alumnus. #TCOT

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