Unlike the situation where the Constitution lets states do things like establish a religion (see, e.g., Maryland until about 1830 or South Carolina til about 1850), the Constitution, through the 14th amendment gives the federal government a role in the protection of the life of citizens. Not as far as the libs would like to take it, but there is a long standing practice of use of the writ of habeas corpus to protect the life of convicted criminals, and as long as they get to use the writ, it seems to me that it could be used to protect the life of an innocent non-criminal, too. The Feds have some legitimate interest in this case.
The Feds vastly expanded the scope of their purview in the Roosevelt years through a misinterpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause of the enumerated powers of Congress, and through misuse of the interstate commerce clause to include anything that might indirectly impact interstate commerce (which everything does). The protection of the 14th amendment which extends to the lives of US citizens well predates that expansion.
The Feds vastly expanded the scope of their purview in the Roosevelt years through a misinterpretation of the "necessary and proper" clause of the enumerated powers of Congress, and through misuse of the interstate commerce clause to include anything that might indirectly impact interstate commerce (which everything does). The protection of the 14th amendment which extends to the lives of US citizens well predates that expansion. When people were being locked up for 'feeble-mindedness,' wasn't this expansion used by civil rights groups and eventually the federal government to get forced sugical sterilizations stopped? The logic was, "this medical treatment was non-reversible."
Kind of interesting that HINO MS can have his wife starved to death (reversible?) but not surgically sterilized.
The law has its perversion of priorities.