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The 14th Amendment declares that no state shall create a law that abridges the natural rights of life, liberty, and property of a United States citizen, whether naturalized or state-born. Too often, both now and in history, we have seen this amendment ignored and pushed to the side, though it resurfaces occasionally, often times during very controversial cases.

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July 28, 1968, the 14th Amendment was finally adopted as part of the Constitution. The first real landmark case involving the 14th Amendment was Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, in which aseparate but equal ethos was adopted, an ideology tested nearly 60 years later, in 1954, during the Brown v. Board of Education case. This case was the turning point of segregation, the Supreme Court deciding that separate facilities were implicitly unequal and beginning the desegregation process. In 2015, the 14th Amendment again was employed in the Obergefell v. Hodges case in which the topic in question was country-wide legalization of homosexual marriage, which, as of June 26, 2015, is legal in all 50 states. Simple application of the 14th Amendment in each of these three cases caused for a very controversial topic to be resolved, creating life-altering results, however most of them being for the good of the whole. Despite the simplicity of the solution, many of us tend to overlook it, pushing it aside and causing more dispute than necessary and intertwining personal opinions with professional decisions.

Exactly one month ago, on January 27th, President Trump issued the immigration ban for all persons from all major Muslim countries, including Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, showing preference to non-Muslim foreigners. Two Iraqi men, who work for the U.S. military, were detained at John F. Kennedy airport a mere few hours after this order was set in motion, despite having all proper documentation and permission to enter. Trumps ban violates multiple constitutional rights, but most of all, it diminishes a Muslim persons ability to become a legal citizen almost entirely, not even giving them an opportunity to claim that it violates the 14th Amendment as they are unable to be naturalized. Women are also subject to some exclusion which again could be solved by simple application of the 14th Amendment. Ohio is one of 18 states to have passed the 20 Weeks Law, stating that a woman cannot abort a fetus more than 20 weeks post-conception, making no exceptions to rape or incest victims, nor to women with fetuses with irreversible birth defects who may not even survive outside the womb. This particular law prohibits women from making a choice that may benefit their health, abridging their natural rights to liberty and giving an unborn fetus more freedom than a live, fully cognizant woman. This is a prime example of intertwining opinion with profession.

The complexity and simplicity of the 14th Amendment has proven quite dynamic throughout history. Many ancestors have benefited from its insightful wording, and even today we continuously witness the effects of its application.

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With liberty and justice for some - Toledo Blade