After reading your last response, I still don't think you get what I'm saying. What I think, and wish were the case in the world, is not compatible with the reality of human nature on the whole, and is not a realistic thing to ever expect from society on the whole, because we do not have forced Christianity in this country, and never should. Abortion shouldn't be legal or illegal. It should never have come before any court in this country. That it did is a complete and total abuse of the legal system. I agree with you in your stand that abortion be "illegal" for lack of another word, and that there were never any abortions, but it will never happen. For that to happen, all Americans would have to be Christians and believe that the unborn are humans with souls. And that will never happen. You can't force morality on people who choose not to have it in their life. In my opinion that is the chief conflict between conservatism and liberalism. Moral because it's right vs. What I want when I want it (immoral) because it feels good to me. That is the biggest fight between us and the liberals in this country. And you just can't bring the pro-abortion (pro-death as I prefer to call them) people to our side because they will never see that. There is a much bigger picture of things they refuse to acknowledge than abortion. Abortion is a symptom of their greater illness, not the cause of the illness itself.
Given all that, and the fact that having it be banned and made illegal would be doing something to the American people that God has never done to any people in history. Removing free will and the God given ability to make terrible, even sinful mistakes, and then some day pay for them before God. Having an action be deemed as illegal doesn't fix it, no matter how justified the illegality of it is. Like you said, rape is illegal, and how well has that worked? It's rampant in this country. 1 of 4 women and girls over the age of 12 in this country have been raped. ONE IN FOUR! Most of them NEVER admit it so they're never part of the recorded statistics, but it's MUCH higher than anyone admits. Child rape is so common place it's incomprehensible, thanks to the sexualization of children by the media, hollywood, and the music, television and clothing industries. No one sane wants kids to be hurt like that, and yet, those industries help sow the environment that creates the statistic. Being made illegal isn't the end all be all by any stretch, and wouldn't make a bit of difference on abortion, other than make it an even more vicious debate. You think the pro-death people are shrill and vicious and venomous now, overturn Roe vs. Wade and see how they get.
Really, there are two things you're talking about. It's a fine line and hard to nail them both down. We're talking about the difference between being granted by God the free will to do something, even if it's wrong and hurts someone else, and then pay for it someday before God, and on the other hand, Congress and the President from on high saying "thus and so is now illegal, and any citizen hence forth that does it shall be fined and jailed". Well, okay, good for Congress and the President, but with abortion, that just doesn't work. It doesn't work because roughly half the people in the country do not believe the "fetus" is an unborn baby, a human, and so to them, it is not a crime. It's not like murder of someone who has been born, or rape or theft or something like that, because the overwhelming majority of people agree those things are crimes, and they are specifically lined out in the Constitution. I believe the founders never thought so many Americans would sink to such depths that they'd abort unborn babies on a whim because of immoral careless lifestyles, and if they did have a clue, they'd of put that in the Constitution stating that "termination of a fetus in the womb, at whatever stage of development, is murder in the first degree, and shall be prosecuted as such" and then it would have be done with because the democrats would never have been able to get the votes in Congress to strike that Amendment. But even if it was illegal, you still cannot legislate a mindset or morality, and the pro-death people just don't believe it is wrong or a crime, so how can you criminalize something that half the people don't believe is a crime, because they don't share the same religious convictions of those who do think it's a crime? How do you really do that? I do not believe it's possible, and that's why I believe it should be left to the States and those who choose to keep it legal will have to take their lumps someday, but States with a majority of people with a conscience, like where I am in Texas, can stand and fight and put an end to it. It is definitely a complicated issue. The difference between what is possible to stop and what's not, not what's right or wrong. Like prohibition. That was a train wreck, and while I agree with much of what was attempted and the reasons, and myself hate that it's legal for someone to go drink till they're barely conscious then go get in their car and kill someone, and not be executed for it, prohibition was still a disaster. And it was demonstrated quite clearly that prohibition only served to increase the proliferation of alcohol in society, not lessen it. There is every reason to believe that making abortion similarly illegal would do the same thing. That has to be considered I think.
I still think the best solution would be to overturn that joke of a ruling and then leave it up to a State by State vote so the people of each State, not their representatives, the actual people are forced to stand up and be counted, and decide to allow abortion in their State or not. Then, God willing, all the people against abortion will create a mass exodus from the states allowing abortion to those who have decided not to, having the added benefit of further guaranteeing that liberals never control the country again. Anyway, that's how I see it after years of tossing it around.
It's people's hearts that have to be changed, not their actions. You can't change what someone does without changing their mindset that causes them to do it. Simply removing the vehicle for them to do what they want doesn't fix them, they'll just find a different way of doing it, like back ally abortions or crossing borders to get them, etc so on. Changing their hearts where they see that abortion is a terrible immoral murderous thing is the answer, and there is no legislation from any body of legislators that can accomplish that. You can't change hearts with legislation. There is only ONE thing that can do that, and He has deemed that people must have the freedom to do things He despises, and then pay for it at the time of His choosing. Including abortion, even as disgusting and revolting as that act is.
I *do* understand what you are saying, but I disagree with the way you translate theory into policy.
"I still think the best solution would be to overturn that joke of a ruling and then leave it up to a State by State vote so the people of each State, not their representatives, the actual people are forced to stand up and be counted, and decide to allow abortion in their State or not."
~ I think our debate began when you said that overturning Roe v. Wade was not important to you. Your statement of "the best solution" is obvious. That is what all of us who want to overturn the Roe-Doe-Stenberg-Casey series of decisions want. That is what reversing the precedent would do.
"It's people's hearts that have to be changed, not their actions. You can't change what someone does without changing their mindset that causes them to do it."
~ I of course want people to become truly pro-life, but simply illegalizing abortion would make it much more rare. I have known people who have little sense of personal morality, but feel it is wrong to violate the law, and avoid doing particular things for this reason alone. This combined with the fact that many secular Americans conflate law and morality would prevent many babies from dying.
"Simply removing the vehicle for them to do what they want doesn't fix them, they'll just find a different way of doing it, like back ally abortions or crossing borders to get them, etc so on."
~ This was not that common before Roe v Wade mandated abortion in all 50 states, so I don't know this would happen now. My experience with women considering abortion is that many of them feel they have no other options and that it is what they are expected to do. Where abortion is illegal, the "other options" are the only ones they will able to pursue, and they would not likely feel "expected" to do something that is against the law.
Law does affect culture. Race relations were altered significantly when segregation was made illegal. Hearts changed as a result when the two groups became acclimated to one another.
Regarding abortion, we have been changing hearts for decades, and most polls suggest we have public opinion on our side. This has done little to improve the legal situation, however, and more and more women are having repeat abortions, which keeps the number up. The hearts that cannot be changed by education or exposure to the Gospel may need to be prevented from action by law. It is worth a try. Having an ineffective law prohibiting abortion is better than having laws that encourage it. There is symbolic importance to the law- if laws meant nothing culturally, Lambda Legal would not have devoted itself to the repeal of unenforced sodomy laws.