Your rights could be next

To the Editor:

“The Constitution makes no reference to abortion, and no such right is implicitly protected by any constitutional provision ...” That is part of Justice Alito's reasoning in his draft of the Mississippi abortion decision, and he's kind of right. The right to decide what happens within a person's own body is not mentioned in the Constitution. So that must be the standard, right?

Well then, where in the Constitution is the “right” of a white person to marry an African-american person? Not there! And good grief! Nowhere does our founding document say that people of the same sex can marry each other, no matter that it was amended for the 14th time to add that no law can “deny to any person … equal protection of the laws.” If it's not spelled out, it doesn't exist. Right, Justice Alito?

How about the “right” to take a birth control pill? Hah! Birth control pills weren't even a fantasy when the Constitution was written. Or Viagra? Where does it say that men have the “right” to take a pill that … Well, you know. Just not there.

Where does it say that Black kids have the “right” to go to the same school as white kids? Nowhere. Sorry, but those words just aren't in the Constitution, and if they're not there, that “right” doesn't exist.

Do you have the “right” to have safe food or drugs? Or “privacy?” Sorry folks, you just don't have any right to privacy because that word doesn't appear in the Constitution either, and if it's not there …

If justices like Mr. Alito and his right-wing cohorts can't find “implicit rights” in the actual words found in our Constitution, originally drafted 235 years ago, words that can protect what a woman does with her own body, just imagine what else they can destroy.

Gary Sipperley Twain Harte