Sociologists might describe this as an example of ideological diffusion. Reconstructionists and Strict Constructionists favor sharply circumscribing federal judicial power, seen as a form of "tyranny' imposed on the states, and refer to the "original intent" of the Constitutional framers - but the Constitution originally had no prohibition against human slavery, granted no voting rights to women and did not establish any right to privacy. Those innovations came later.

In claiming that the US Supreme Court ruling on Roe v. Wade amounts to judicial tyranny against the US states, Ann Althouse has in effect aligned herself with those Christian Reconstructionists (and even Neo-Confederates) who seek to sharply curtail federal judicial authority in order to impose at the state level their interpretation of "Biblical Law" that includes, as a counterpart to Althouse's apparent "freedom" of forced pregnancy, the "freedom" of debt-slavery.

"Freedom" is an infinitely malleable word, it would seem :

[image: Robert Altman photograph of Janis Joplin singing a song called Freedom.]

Althouse appears to feel that if Roe is overturned, and states begin re-criminalizing abortion, that would represent an expansion of American, and women's, rights. According to a Jan. 2004 SIECUS survey, about thirty percent of US public and middle high school schools teach "abstinence only" sex ed. and less than half of those teach their kids anything at all about contraception. By Althouse's seeming logic, the 15-16 percent of American teens who get taught nothing whatsoever about contraception and safe sex enjoy the "right" to the highest teen pregnancy rates and one of the highest STD rates in the industrialized world. Ah, freedom.

When not crafting legal arguments, Constitutional scholar Althouse can be found exercising her First Amendment rights on her personal blog post - such as in her most recent post that picks up the earthshaking blogospheric discussion of  "who appointed Diane Keaton to the position of National Commissioner for Aging Female Sexuality ?" [ is that a new Bush Administration cabinet position or something ? ]  and wonders "But does it have to be Diane Keaton? Who could never act? Who was never really hot at any time, Woody Allen's thing for her notwithstanding? Who now looks weirdly like a 38-year-old who's had wrinkles superimposed on her by the studio makeup artists so she could play a grandma?"