The Ninth Amendment

The Ninth Amendment to the United States Constitution addresses rights, retained by the people, that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution. It is part of the Bill of Rights. In other words, the ninth amendment is also known as the “silent amendment” due to the fact that it is rarely acknowledged by the supreme court. The ninth amendment bears directly on things like abortion, the right to die, gay rights, and privacy. The founding fathers did not believe that they were creating these liberties in the Bill of Rights, instead they were acknowledging the rights that no government could deny. The ninth amendment also deals with privacy. Basically, this amendment protects one’s natural born rights that no one can take away from them. Natural rights are rights that people supposedly have under natural law. The Declaration of Independence of the United States lists life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness as natural rights. I believe that this amendment is extremely important to society because it aids to our freedom and helps to better the nation as a whole.

This connects to the book Zulus by Pervical Everett. Although Zulus was set in a dystopian society, the people of the community were stripped of this amendment. All members of this society were required to be sterilized. The only person who was not was the protagonist, Alice Achitophel. However, Alice still managed to be violated of her basic human right of consent. Alice was raped by a mysterious man and when she was, she became pregnant. The mood of the entire community shifted when they decided that they wanted to take the baby away from Alice. This backfired due to the fact that Alice was never actually pregnant with a child after all. Alice ran off and essentially killed the entire society as a result of the violation of her basic rights. It is important to respect the rights of other humans as it can cause mass hysteria.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.