If you are against "If we say so" rule of government, you might like this supreme court opinion.
There is plenty of precedent for overruling constitutional decisions. From a legal perspective this is not new, see Brown v Board overruling Plessy v Ferg.
There’s nothing in the Constitution that comports with this philosophy. You can’t “see” gay conversion therapy or whatever physical characteristic such therapy aims to target, and yet it’s eminently reasonable (and most would agree Constitutional) for State legislatures to outlaw its practice.
I’m as pro-choice as anyone else, but it’s pretty clear that the Constitution has always been mum on the subject. Sometimes things can be good and important, but not currently a Constitutional right.
That's exactly the point; and those "oh so many things" are left to the States.
> Perhaps a constitutional amendment that gives people their privacy back is in order?
Perhaps, I'd be supportive of something like that!
> "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
This just means that the absence of an enumerated right doesn't imply that the right is absent by default. The fact that the Constitution doesn't outline a right to drive a car (or consume heroin) doesn't mean that driving a car or consuming heroin is by default illegal; it's just left to the States (and the people) to decide what to do with those things. But (importantly), just because the Constitution doesn't outline a right to consume heroin, the 9th Amendment does not confer a Constitutional right to consume heroin — that would be absurd. It's still something that can be decided upon by the legislatures, and if a legislature decided to outlaw the consumption of heroin, you can't point to the Constitution to invalidate such laws.
> It stands to reason (in Roe) that, unless someone's religion (separation of church and state?) believes a life begins before birth, the right of a woman's privacy and control of her own life and happiness is primary.
I agree with the normative assessment that the right of a woman's privacy and control of her own life/happiness is primary (at least up to a certain point in the pregnancy); I'm pro-choice. That said, the fact that people may use their own religious views to come to a different conclusion and pass laws to that effect is NOT a violation of the separation of church and state. All "separation of church and state" means is that there's no official state religion, and policymaking isn't delegated to the clergy without democratic input — that's it.
To illustrate with an example, it doesn't really matter that (historically) the majority of people derived their beliefs on the morality of assault/murder from the Ten Commandments, the fact that murder is illegal is not a violation of the separation of church and state.
> Any other logic, as in Dobbs, is superseding her right to privacy, life, and happiness, with the religious belief in the life of an unborn child.
Except this belief is not exclusively religious. There are plenty of atheists that are pro-life, and similarly believe that (at least after a certain point of a pregnancy) the right of the unborn child should be balanced with the right of the mother.
If the so-called "religious zealots" were duly elected through free and fair democratic process, then yes absolutely. The "separation of Church and State" does not mean "secularism", it means religious pluralism, with no favorites for a particular religion. The absence of religious belief is not "neutral" but instead just another belief system, and all belief systems are treated equally. This is why we don't administer religious tests to enter office, which allows atheists to enter office, but (importantly) also allows religious people to enter office regardless of their faith. All that said, the Constitution disallows religious zealots from explicitly codifying religious scripture into the legal process or from establishing a state religion.
> What if Afghanistan were a state?
Afghanistan's problems stem from 1) the fact their religious zealots have taken over the country by force rather than via free and fair elections and 2) the fact that they have an officially established state religion that explicitly operates on Sharia law.
> Would our nation allow them to stone harlots, and behead adulterers?
It would not, but that's not because of some abstract commitment to secularism, but because that would likely violate the 8th Amendment which proscribes cruel and unusual punishments. In fact, the Constitution likely permits States from outlawing adultery if their citizens so desire. One might choose to support such laws because they think "cheating is bad", but it doesn't matter which book made them think that "cheating is bad". The Constitution places guard rails on which human rights may not be violated — and unfortunately abortion isn't one of those human rights enshrined in the Constitution.
> Let's face it: The right of women to privacy, life, and happiness runs directly afoul of a religious belief (not shared by all religions, not even by Christianity, Judaism, or the bible, only Christianists) in the theoretical life of unborn children. Who but the mother is best suited to choose the right balance of rights?
Again, one's opinion on how society should choose the right balance of rights is a function of the core belief system they operate off of. One may derive their belief system from secular sources, like reading Harry Potter as a child or being raised a particular way, or from religious sources like the Bible or the Quran. "Separation of church and state" does not mean that the government cannot regulate behavior based on religious beliefs, it just means that the State cannot establish a state religion.
In Islam, gambling is a sin, and one may choose to personally vote to outlaw gambling because they are Muslim, but that doesn't mean that outlawing gambling is a violate of "separation of Church and State". It doesn't matter what people's reasons are for voting a particular way, as long as the end result is otherwise permissible.
As it relates to abortion, yes you're correct that the majority of pro-lifers are religious, and likely derive their views on abortion from non-secular belief systems, but there are also many secular pro-lifers (https://www.loc.gov/item/lcwaN0018333/), even Jewish, Hindu, and Muslim pro-lifers (https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-stu...). Even though they're in the minority among their respective groups, they apply some belief system to derive their moral views, and then use those moral views while participating in democracy. Again, it does not matter what people's reasons are for voting a particular way, as long as the end result is otherwise permissible. Conversely, if one's religious beliefs were that "free speech is bad", and they attempted to vote to regulate speech based off of their personal beliefs, the Constitution would invalidate any laws that came about that way because the end result is not permissible by the Bill of Rights.
I personally agree with you that the mother is best suited to choose the balance of rights, but that's because I (probably) derive my morals off of a similar set of core beliefs as you do, and therefore we are able to agree on the issue of abortion. The fact that this is not true for everybody is not a violation of "separation of Church and State", and is to be expected in a religiously pluralistic country.
To be clear, the “right” only came into existence because the Supreme Court in the 1970s conjured it out of thin air. Several other high courts in advanced democracies took up the abortion question around that time. None found a legal right to abortion. Most found it to be an issue for the legislature. Germany found abortion to violate the Basic Law’s Right to Life (and that precedent still stands!)
But if abortion were truly a violation of law (not to speak of the Basic Law) it would necessarily open the perpetrator to acts of self-defense (or self-defense of others, not sure about the English phrase).
But our Constitution Court specifically ruled that "other-defense" is not applicable, even when the abortion violates the 12 week limit.
It's just as political here as over there in America. And the legislative and courts are also muddling through.
Side note: on the very same day Roe v. Wade was overturned the German parliament legalized advertising for/informing about abortions (depending on who you ask).
Americans reasonably feel extremely strongly about this. When a perceived right is forcefully taken away by one's state, the legal argument for or against the federal mechanism that was preventing that takes a back seat, to put it mildly.