Understanding the Constitution: Why Biden is wrong to think the 9th Amendment protects abortion
- March 10, 2022
You may have heard alarms that if we hold a national convention for proposing constitutional amendments the gathering would be an uncontrollable constitutional convention (“con-con”) that could propose anything at all. The claim is called the “runaway scenario.” It has almost no basis in history or law.
READ MORENOTE: This is an updated version of an essay first published in 2013. For a comprehensive treatment of the law of Article V, see State Initiation of Constitutional Amendments: A Guide for Lawyers and Legislative Drafters (4th ed. 2016) and more recent postings on this website. Many lawmakers and activists, and most of the public,
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