Dear Editor:
Commenting on Bert Dirschell's Feb. 6 letter, by the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, "We the People" ordained and established a government for "ourselves and our Posterity." This declared the sovereignty of that government must emanate from the sovereignty of the People, the Posterity would inherit that government and the government's continued justification would be based on the continued existence of that Posterity. To maintain the authority of government, it was in the best interests of administrators, politicians and judges to promote the continued existence of the Posterity or they would either be out of a job or be usurping the sovereignty of the People. The Preamble is the "right to life amendment" which some people seek; abortion at that time was unlawful.
By the mid-1800s, Congress and its financial backers absorbed the abolitionist movement, eventually proposing in the 14th Amendment, "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States." Congress couldn't include anyone else in We the People and their Posterity since that was the body who created Congress; nor did Congress want to extend this type of citizenship to anyone else so instead a form of subject-ship was set up. The 14th Amendment does not mention rights but instead uses the words, "privileges and immunities." Congress wanted a gap in the inheritance process so nothing of the Posterity's 6,000 years of inherited legal history and inherited rights of their ancestors would come to bear on the authority of Congress.
The 14th was carefully worded to avoid the Preamble. The public thinks a person is a flesh and blood being but it is also a legal term to describe an artificial entity, like a corporation, created by legislation. The word born only indicates the beginning of that new entity without any reference from where it came. Paraphrasing from Roe v. Wade, "Appellee argues that the fetus is a 'person' within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment. In support of this, they outline at length the well-known facts of fetal development. If personhood is established, the fetus' right to life would be guaranteed by the amendment. All this (reviewing the use of the word person in the U.S. Constitution but not People in the Preamble) persuades us that the word 'person,' as used in the Fourteenth Amendment, does not include the unborn."
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