ABSTRACT
Proponents of a woman's right to choose abortion have argued that a "zone of privacy" is implied in the Constitution. Opponents of laws setting minimum wages, mandating safe working conditions, and protecting union organizing argued in the 1920s and 1930s that the Constitution protected a "liberty of contract" that forbade such laws. Either of these examples, one considered a liberal issue, one a conservative issue, would be constitutional under the plain-meaning or original-intent approaches to civil liberties. Despite the human longing for self-evident propositions, laws must be interpreted, except in rare circumstances. Supreme Court justices who have used this approach have then tried to tie interpretation into the basic structure or inferred meaning of the US Constitution. According to the method of interpretation, it is perfectly reasonable to adapt the desire for privacy expressed in this phrase to developing technology.
