toucana

An interesting article by Jill Lepore published in the New Yorker in May 2022 makes the point that the 4,000 words of the US Constitution written in 1787 contain no references to women

https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/why-there-are-no-women-in-the-constitution

Quote

“Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito is surprised that there is so little written about abortion in a four-thousand-word document crafted by fifty-five men in 1787. As it happens, there is also nothing at all in that document, which sets out fundamental law, about pregnancy, uteruses, vaginas, fetuses, placentas, menstrual blood, breasts, or breast milk. There is nothing in that document about women at all. Most consequentially, there is nothing in that document—or in the circumstances under which it was written—that suggests its authors imagined women as part of the political community embraced by the phrase “We the People.” There were no women among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention. There were no women among the hundreds of people who participated in ratifying conventions in the states. There were no women judges. There were no women legislators. At the time, women could neither hold office nor run for office, and, except in New Jersey, and then only fleetingly, women could not vote. Legally, most women did not exist as persons.”

That is by no means the end of of the derelictions in the Constitution either. It doesn’t mention, black people, Jews, or people who identify as LGBT for example; nor does it have anything lucid to say about climate change, nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, the internet, the expansion of the  universe, the Hubble constant, the nature of dark matter, SETI - or a dozen other topics of pressing interest either.

Most critical of all, the US constitution (in Ailto’s view at least) has nothing to say about a fundamental right to privacy. That at least seems to be the cornerstone of his decision to overthow 50 years of stare decisis, and to throw the USA into legislative chaos.