Gun Rights Are Women's Rights?

Why are progressives standing with the National Rifle Association in the biggest gun rights case of the year? Because some believe it's an opportunity to thaw a cryogenically frozen clause in the Constitution that might add a crucial tool to the arsenal of advocates for civil liberties and individual rights.

The right to privacy, which protects reproductive freedom, has historically been protected from state action by the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, directed at protecting people's "life, liberty, or property." Critics of reproductive rights argue that being deprived of contraception or abortion, for instance, generally do not endanger a woman's life, liberty, or property, and are thus undeserving of protection under the Due Process Clause.

In McDonald v. Chicago, the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) may re-shape the way that individual liberties are legally defended against state interference. The argument for restoring the more broadly drafted Privileges or Immunities Clause -- effectively eviscerated by the Supreme Court shortly after its enactment -- appears to have found fertile ground on both sides of the SCOTUS's perceived progressive-conservative divide.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the first director of the ACLU's Women's Rights Project in the 1970's, has long sought an alternative to due process for protecting reproductive rights. Justice Clarence Thomas, often found diametrically opposed to Ginsburg, has directly invited debate about whether the Supreme Court should give credence to the Fourteenth Amendment's command that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

If the right to bear arms finds protection in the Privileges or Immunities Clause, debate swirls around how this might affect reproductive rights, with esteemed progressive and conservative scholars taking different views on the issue. What remains certain, though, is that when the Supreme Court hears oral argument in McDonald, people passionate about both the rights to arms and abortion, handguns and health, should be watching with bated breath.

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