The Right to Privacy

Robert P. George in the New York Times on the right to privacy:

What Blackmun never told us, and couldn't tell us, is why the due process clause - which on its face is concerned with procedural matters - should be interpreted in this sweeping way. On what constitutional basis can we say that abortion is protected by "due process" but a right to assisted suicide - unanimously rejected by the court in 1997 - is not? Why is sodomy protected and prostitution unprotected? Why does the right to privacy not extend to polygamy or the use of recreational drugs?

Clearly, it is not the Constitution that accounts for the outcomes in the court's "privacy" cases; it is simply the moral and political opinions of the justices. The nation will be fortunate if Judge Roberts understands that the result of the court's invention of a generalized right to privacy has been 40 years of unprincipled - and unpredictable - constitutional law.