I didn’t listen to the Supreme Court argument on abortion today but the one thing I heard that was genius was a brief line of questioning by Justice Thomas.

Now most of you don’t really follow the Supreme Court and probably don’t know that Justice Thomas rarely speaks at oral argument. In fact I think there have entire court terms where he asked no or vary few questions. But recently he’s become a little more vocal.

Today and I’m paraphrasing he asked the woman representing the abortion clinic the following. If I’m dealing with a second amendment question I can read the text of the constitution and decide which side prevails and then he said if I have a fourth amendment case I can look at the constitutional language so please tell me where I can find the language on abortion in the constitution. And of course, the reply was as expected a bumbling word salad that eventually ended up with claiming that the liberty provision in the 14th amendment covers it.

Now those of you who have followed my nonsense know that the 14th amendment was one of the three post civil war amendments — 13, 14 and 15. The 13th freed the slaves and the 15th gave them the right to vote. The 14th had the due process clause that provided that states could not deprive citizens of life, liberty or property without due process of law. That was already the law applicable to the federal government via the 5th amendment.

Now here’s the idiocy of that argument. At the time of passage of the 14th amendment, there were no states that allowed abortion so it’s impossible that they intended for the 14th to cover it. It took a hundred years for some justices to find it. And lastly, as I have said before, this case even if it overturned Roe will not outlaw abortion it will just let states decide what they want to do on the subject as is appropriate under the constitution. Some states will restrict abortions and it’s possible that a few will outlaw it completely but many may expand it. You will still be able to get an abortion in the US.

As I have said before, this is not about reproductive rights. No one is trying to stop you from reproducing. And there is no reason to get pregnant if you don’t want to. Birth control is readily available and free under Obamacare.