Topic: Right To Privacy - The Beginning and Ending of Life
Senator: Feinstein
Date: SEPTEMBER 13, 2005
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FEINSTEIN: In response to the chairman's question this morning about the right to privacy, you answered that you believed that there is an implied right to privacy in the Constitution, that it's been there for some 80 years, and that a number of provisions in the Constitution support this right. And you enumerated them this morning.
Do you then believe that this implied right of privacy applies to the beginning of life and the end of life?
ROBERTS: Well, Senator, first of all, I don't necessarily regard it as an implied right. It is the part of the liberty that is protected under the due process clause. That liberty is enumerated...
FEINSTEIN: Part of liberty, then.
ROBERTS: Yes. And the exact scope of it, with respect to the beginning of life and the end of life, those are issues that are coming before the court in both respects, and I don't think that I should go further to elaborate upon whether or not it applies in those particular situations.
FEINSTEIN: All right.
ROBERTS: Obviously, it has been articulated by the court in both contexts, in the Cruzan case with respect to the end of life, the Glucksberg case following Cruzan.
But I don't think it's appropriate for me, given the fact that cases arise on both of those questions, to go further.
FEINSTEIN: All right. Let's move right along.
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