"In Texas, where abortion was already viewed as a states’ rights issue, the Ninth Amendment was interpreted as reserving to the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government. Coffee and Weddington were sure that even if they could prove that the present law was unconstitutional, the state of Texas would still be able to make a strong claim that the writing of a new law was up to the state legislature. And the state’s lawyers might even argue that the court had no business striking the law, that this, too, was the province of the legislature. (Opponents would always maintain that abortions should be regulated by the states; they viewed any kind of federal court ruling on the issue as anathema.) Using the Ninth Amendment to strike the abortion laws would, as far as the state was concerned, be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Despite this, both women saw that the Ninth Amendment offered a substantial ground for recognizing the right to privacy and decided they had to use it."