The Vermont General Assembly has advanced a proposal that will appear on the November 2022 ballot. If approved, it would make abortion a constitutionally protected right.
[Vermont Biz] On Tuesday, the Vermont House passed Prop 5, the Reproductive Liberty Amendment. This completes the final legislative step in a four-year long process to enshrine an individual’s right to reproductive liberty in the Vermont Constitution. Prop 5 includes protections of an individual’s right to continue or end a pregnancy and access contraception. The constitutional amendment will now appear on the 2022 General Election Ballot, giving Vermont voters the final say on whether or not to amend the state’s constitution.
Prop 5 would add article 22.
Sec. 2. Article 22. [Personal reproductive liberty] That an individual’s right to personal reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed unless justified by a compelling State interest achieved by the least restrictive means.
I have no sense about how the state’s general population might feel about this because the language does not explicitly say “you can kill unborn babies if you want to do that.” They use the term “reproductive autonomy” while claiming this is central to liberty and dignity – to determine one’s own life course.
This reminds us that the Left the unborn are not people who have dignity or life at all, let alone its course or a right to personal reproductive autonomy starting with being born – the quintessential reproductive act.
It also could prove problematic for the authors and the party of central planners.
When convenient, they like to separate clauses in constitutional amendments. In the case of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, the right of the people shall not be infringed is ignored in favor of the word militia for the purpose o infringing on the right.
This attitude about infringement is well documented. What might that mean for Sec 2 Article 22 should voters accept the addition?
Vermont Article 22 starts with, “reproductive autonomy is central to the liberty and dignity to determine one’s own life course and shall not be denied or infringed.” Even prefaced as referring to reproductive freedom, a talented lawyer could leverage it to mean anything, including a constitutional right to refuse the latest vaccine if it might in some way infrgine on that right.
There is voluminous evidence the COVIDmRNA vaccines do that.
And if you are free to choose your life course or the process or reproduction, then who is to say that whether pregnant now or in the future, you could not make the case that something the government wanted or did is an infringement upon that right (measured using the least restrictive means)?
The least restrictive means, in my mind, suggests that courts cannot use the strictest form of scrutiny to ensure that abortions continue uninterrupted. But they never use the word abortion. They also never reference gender.
Reproduction is not possible without both sperm and eggs. And the freedom and dignity to reproduce must encompass more than those who lay claim to a womb.
And what if a minor wants to get pregnant? Having survived the constitutional right to abortion and achieved an age where reproduction is possible, are they not entitled to their own reproductive freedom?
Does Sec. 2 Article 22 create a constitutional right to statutory rape, assuming consent?
I did not see out the year’s worth of debate that led to this iteration of the proposed amendment, nor should I need to do that. Again, using the Left’s process, that would be originalism, and they pretend to abhor that. All that matters are the words before us and whatever we think they mean.
So what do they mean, and are Vermonters prepared to suffer through what they might mean?
We won’t know until November.
