The assertion has the look of a political counter-punch coming in the wake of the recent walk-back of the Obama Administration’s backfired attempt to force religious institutions to provide abortifacients through their healthcare plans.
We’ll see more such diversions as the campaign progresses, but of more importance to me as a still undecided voter is whether this is just spin or if in fact Santorum wants to abolish birth control through diktat. Having done a credible job vetting all the candidates, I have simply never heard any candidate say that the federal government should outlaw contraceptives.
The roots of the claim against Santorum seem to reside in the candidate’s debate of January 7 where George Stephanopolous asked a question related to the Griswold decision. Griswold vs. Connecticut was a 1965 Supreme Court case challenging an 1879 Connecticut law that prohibited the use of "any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception."
The statute was rarely enforced, but the case has been a real playground for constitutional debates ever since, even though none of the interlocutors would argue that it is good public policy for governments to dictate regarding such personal and medical decisions. Rather, the discussion is about how far the federal government can go in overruling state statutes. In short it's a discussion about the Ninth and Tenth Amendments and how far the "penumbras" of the federal government can reach.
At least three out of four of the remaining Republican candidates have stated that they disagree with the Griswold decision on precisely those grounds, that the Supreme Court has limits to its authority when dealing with the states. (Specifically, Ron Paul, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney have all come down on that side to one extent or another). We might agree or disagree with them on the question, but it is not an out-of-the-mainstream consideration.
No one is proposing a new 21st Amendment, this time related to contraceptives. In fact the disagreement with Griswold is closer to saying just the opposite, that the federal government needs to keep its nose out of such matters altogether and let the states decide for themselves. While we might disagree with that approach, it is miles from accusing the likes of Ron Paul of wanting to see the abolition of birth control in the United States.
A discussion on the reach of the Ninth and Tenth Amendments is long overdue. This is the time to do it. It's a shame that the emotions surrounding Griswold are obscuring the less sexy constitutional issues involved. And it's an even greater shame that it is being used to score some cheap political points.
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Interesting analysis here: http://www.nysun.com/editorials/mr-romney-and-mrs-griswold/87642/
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