More on the Abigail Alliance

Radley Balko | August 11, 2007

Just to clarify this post, I didn't mean to imply that there is a right to medication that someone else must provide. Only that you should have the right to transact with a willing vendor to access lifesaving medication. The ruling says no—that the federal government may in effect allow you to die in order to protect you from drugs that may not work (note that this isn't even an issue of safety, only efficacy). If anything at all is still covered by the Ninth Amendment (and alas, it seems that nothing is), I would think it would be the right to allow yourself the chance to save your own life.

Also, I neglected to link to our own Kerry Howley's excellent feature on the topic from our August/September issue.

Comments

Joshua Holmes|8.11.07 @ 1:13AM|#

If anything at all is still covered by the Ninth Amendment

There is case law dealing with unenumerated rights, but is there any which says, "The right we found is in the Ninth Amendment."? If not, what good did it ever do?

|8.11.07 @ 1:33AM|#

I wish they were more explicit with th bill of irhgts. I'm drunk going to sleep.

|8.11.07 @ 8:38AM|#

Joshua Holmes,

Abortion is famously protected by the Ninth, but outside of that it's pretty much ignored.

Jennifer|8.11.07 @ 9:11AM|#

The ruling says no-that the federal government may in effect allow you to die in order to protect you from drugs that may not work (note that this isn't even an issue of safety, only efficacy).

How appalling. May as well make it illegal for religious sick people to pray for wellness; with no evidence prayer actually works, let's deny THAT to dying people, too. And when we imprison them, we can add insult to injury by saying it's for their own protection.

SIV|8.11.07 @ 9:36AM|#

Jennifer,

Imprisoned for praying? The American Family Association issued this warning on a totalitarian America.
The infamous "grandpa psa"

mp3

|8.11.07 @ 9:38AM|#

So much for the rule of law.

Balko, I agree with you, Kerry Howley does have excellent features.

|8.11.07 @ 10:39AM|#

Does Warren have 'net access at the Straw Poll? ;-)

|8.11.07 @ 10:46AM|#

I wish they were more explicit with th bill of irhgts.

The Congress shall have power ... To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; by commerce, we mean goods crossing state lines in exchange for payment, not crops grown in a state and consumed inside the same state, you bloody fools!

....

AMENDMENT IV

...nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. "Public" means public, "use" means use. Got it?!

Robert|8.11.07 @ 10:59AM|#

The only thing is, I don't think they could prove injury by that law, when they had no certainty of obtaining a patented drug from its patent holder, and when that particular law & agency did not prevent them from making their own drug. That is, it's hard to prove that particular law injured them. If they had a drug company join them in the suit they'd've had a better chance.

Jennifer|8.11.07 @ 12:08PM|#

Imprisoned for praying?

No less ridiculous than "imprisoned for buying and swallowing a pill." The only reason it hasn't been made illegal already is that so far, there's no known blood test that can reliably detect the evidence of a recently consumed prayer.

Bill Pope|8.11.07 @ 1:34PM|#

Unfortunately Randy, "the right to transact with a willing vendor to access lifesaving medication" doesn't extend to the importation of drugs to circumvent the often ridiculous prices of the Big Pharma funders of Reason.

|8.11.07 @ 4:10PM|#

Question? Did anyone march in front of the courthouse in Abigail Alliance in support of the right to life?

No?

Could that be because this case doesn't involve sexual conduct or the fruits thereof? Or is it because this case doesn't have the potential to separate fundies from their funds, so that the professional activists don't have to work at a real job?

Anonymo the Anonymous|8.11.07 @ 5:23PM|#

I wish they were more explicit with th bill of irhgts.

There's a pretty decent case that they were too explicit, which is why some of the Founders didn't want a bill of rights -- not because they opposed the rights, but because they didn't want to suggest that these even needed to be written down. To them, it was plain as day that people had the right to free speech or religion. Once you write it into law, others can look for a legalistic way around that law, like the kid who sticks their hand a few microns from their sibling's face and insists they have no recourse because they're not touching him.

Of course, the Ninth and Tenth amendments, properly read, explicitly tell us how the Constitution is to be interpreted, but we all know how that played out.

|8.11.07 @ 5:30PM|#

this case doesn't involve sexual conduct or the fruits thereof?

Each one of us is the fruit thereof.

|8.11.07 @ 5:30PM|#

Which, of course, is why abortion is no more a sexual-issue than anything else.

|8.11.07 @ 6:14PM|#

Abortion is not a sexual issue because everyone is the fruit of sexual activity? Yeah, right. Or was the above comment intended to deny the doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus?

|8.11.07 @ 6:17PM|#

OK, John, so how is abortion a sexual issue, in a way that, say, school vouchers aren't?

|8.11.07 @ 6:51PM|#

I thought that this is so obvious that you were perhaps being facetious. My bad.

Many opponents of abortion rights deride or condemn the availability of what they characterize as "abortion as birth control"--minimizing or ameliorating the consequences of irresponsible sexual activity. Many of these same persons similarly oppose the practice or availability of contraception.

Procreation is inseparable from sex, but medical science has enabled people to have sex for purposes apart from procreation with a reduced likelihood that pregnancy will result or, if pregnancy does result, the pregnant woman need not carry the pregnancy to term. These facts, along with the availability lawfully of contraception and abortion services, has yielded an increase in sexual activity, which disconcerts many who are wound too tight about sex.

Can anyone argue with a straght face that any of this is true of school vouchers? To even ask that question is to answer it.

The Pope|8.11.07 @ 7:45PM|#

Many of these same persons similarly oppose the practice or availability of contraception.

Who is this "many" of which you speak?
Opposition to use by oneself/spouse/congregation or the state providing bc to children do not count.

Radley Balko|8.12.07 @ 1:04AM|#

Unfortunately Randy, "the right to transact with a willing vendor to access lifesaving medication" doesn't extend to the importation of drugs to circumvent the often ridiculous prices of the Big Pharma funders of Reason.

1) It's Radley.

2) I don't know who does and doesn't fund the Reason Foundation, and I do my best to keep it that way.

3) That said, I support drug reimportation, and free trade in pharmeceuticals generally. This, despite the fact that both my parents have for all of my life worked for the pharmaceutical industry.

So you're pretty much wrong on all counts, "Bob."

|8.12.07 @ 12:52PM|#

I do not want this to become an abortion thread.

|8.12.07 @ 7:58PM|#

The rhetorical question I posed above (and to which no one has responded) was not about abortion--it is about the (mis)use of language for politicalends. More particularly, it is about whether a generalized "right to life" matters (after birth) to those who have hijacked the phrase in service of their blastocystophilia.

Robert|8.12.07 @ 8:38PM|#

"To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes; by commerce, we mean goods crossing state lines in exchange for payment, not crops grown in a state and consumed inside the same state, you bloody fools!"

But they don't rule that. Rather, they rule that regulating the growth of such crops is necessary & proper to allow them to regulate interstate commerce, because such "ecomonic activity" affects interstate commerce.