Bush courts versus people’s rights

Re “Untested drugs ban is upheld,” Jan. 15

In no other way will the debilitating effects of the Bush administration on our republic be more pernicious and persistent than his appointments to the judiciary.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Thomas Griffith finds that “there is no fundamental right ‘deeply rooted in this nation’s history and tradition’ of access to experimental drugs for the terminally ill.”

Griffith, a recent Bush appointee, could be spouting inanities like this from his bench for another 20 years.

And Bush’s Supreme Court went along by refusing to hear the case.

This is yet another instance of compassionate conservatives killing people in order to protect them. Iraq comes to mind

What conservatives on the courts refuse to understand is that the Bill of Rights is a list of rights that the citizens grant to the government, not vice versa.

This distinction is more than just academic. By getting it wrong, conservatives have brought us to the brink of fascism.

Griffith should have ruled that there is no fundamental right of the government to deny potentially lifesaving treatment to dying patients.

People who might be saved by drugs may die needlessly.

Steve Weller

Encinitas

The article states that, since Roe vs. Wade, “critics of the court have repeatedly said the justices go wrong when they find rights that are not spelled out in the Constitution.”

The 9th Amendment explicitly says, “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The framers were split -- some advocated including a specification of “the rights of the people”; others opposed it because they thought it would be misconstrued as a specification of all rights, and they could not foresee rights that would be necessary to preserve liberty in the future.

The 9th Amendment was intended to make it impossible to assert that the rights specified in the first eight amendments are the only rights retained by the people.

Conservative justices say they apply the “original intent” and the “original meaning” of the Constitution. Is that really what they do?

Alan R. Gordon

Camarillo