Like many of you, I suspect, I was totally puzzled by Mike Huckabee’s comments about using the Fifth and Fourteen Amendments to put an end to abortion. I think I figured it out this morning.
The chain of reasoning goes like this:
1. The Roe case was decided improperly;
2. As President, I would be obligated to interpret the Constitution, and those interpretations would have at least as much legal authority as those promulgated by the Supreme Court;
3. In my opinion, the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments protect the unborn, and prevail over any inconsistent state or federal legislation; therefore
4. Any state or federal law authorizing abortion is unconstitutional, and may not be enforced. There is no need for a constitutional amendment or even for authorizing federal legislation; the Constitution is self-implementing on this point, just as it was on school desegregation in the 1950’s and 1960’s.
In essence, what he is doing is putting himself in the position of the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education, and using the executive branch to enforce his view of what federal law is regardless of the forty year line of Supreme Court precedents finding a constitutional right to abortion. Logically, one can imagine him sending the military to, say, New York, and closing down abortion clinics using this reasoning.
There would be no reason for him to stop with abortion. One would have to assume that he would similarly tell the states that the Supreme Court’s decisions on same-sex marriage are invalid and revive the enforcement of DOMA.
If elected, Huckabee is promising to provoke the greatest constitutional crisis in this country since Watergate. Fortunately for us, it isn’t going to happen.