The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Ah, the good 'ol Ninth... not one of my favorites in the way it has been used, but it's purpose is still pretty important. I personally don't want every single thing I'm allowed to do to have to be spelled out on ANY government paper. So yes, technically when I say "you have no right to privacy." or something like that a strong case can be made against me based on the Ninth...
The question is... Where does it end??? People seem to think the Ninth means, "You have all the preceding rights, plus whatever rights you want to claim." Does that mean you have a constitutionally protected right to an abortion? pornography? prostitution? Do you have the right to access marijuana based on the ninth? I don't think so.
The founding fathers were concerned the fact that they listed out rights would be used to curtail the rights people already had. Its like a mother telling her child "you can have some desert, watch some TV, and play a game before you go to bed." And the kid runs off understand he's not allowed to do his homework... I disagree with that. I think the ninth means the kid still has the right to eat his dinner.
I think people should pay close attention to the final words of the amendment "or disparage others retained by the people," That means they didn't intend to disparage the rights that the people CURRENTLY had. Anything that was illegal around the ratification of the Constitution can not be called unconstitutional now on account of the ninth. If the founding fathers observed such a conflict, they would have addressed it.
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