This is a genuine question.
Does the "Due Process" requirement of the 14th Amendment prohibit states from allowing its citizens to capture and enslave other humans? If the "equal protection" and "due process" clauses of the 14th Amendment aren't enough to prevent states from the buying and selling of enslaved people, then the 13th Amendment is very much not obsolete.
But if the "Due Process" clause of the 14th Amendment is to be interpreted so weakly as that it doesn't even forbid states from engaging in the slave trade.... what does it protect?
I think it's time we start advocating that our state Constitutions enshrine the right to marriage, to contraception, and to consensual sexual relationships. Without those explicit protections in state Constitutions, I'm not persuaded that the United States constitution will necessarily always be interpreted to protect those rights.
Despite the overturning of Roe, I do not believe this court (other than Thomas) would take so dim a view of the 14th Amendment on the issues listed above.... but there is no telling what a future court might do.
The fight is in the states now.... and even in liberal states, the citizens should have a care to enshrine those rights in the state Constitution.
I agree. Maybe not to enshrine mariage and consensual sex, but that THomas is the lonely judge in his extreme opinion. Besides, what could possibly bring such a case before the Supreme Court?
Genuine question
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