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Lets see you want states rights. Remember 1957, 1964,RICO laws and on and on and on.

If you want another take on states rights, they died in 1865 at the end of the Civil War. In a defacto sense, the Union victory in the Civil War put states rights in the "back of the bus." Yes, there are still some things left to the states but let's say if you "tell the Feds where to stick it" on things like drinking age and until 1995, the 55 MPH speed limit, you would lose your highway funds. I think another thing that made states rights less prevalent was instantanious communication from the time of radio onward to TV, the internet, satellites, microwave towers and so on that made it more possible for a central Federal Government. Transportation fits into that too, you can traverse the nation in a couple of days by car or train or hours in the case of aircraft, before that it took weeks to months. What the Civil War started, technology finished.

I know myself, I tend to have sympathies to the South in the Civil War if I was around then, but I do realize that for good or bad, depending on the case, states rights have taken a back seat. I'm a believer that force or the threat of force has solved every problem in human history and the Civil War was no exception. The Union won, period. To get back to the original intent of states rights in the Constitution, you would either need some sort of collapse of central authority due to very bad economic conditions, an invasion from Red China or an atomic war, such things would weaken a central Federal government leaving the states to themselves and in a defacto sense, you'd have states rights again much like pre-Civil War days although in the future case, you might end up with no central federal government so the point is moot anyhow.

In many other cases, the Constitution is just another yellow document when you think about it, already the gun grabbers violate the 2nd Amendment, we have runaway judges like Judge Greer, perhaps some parts of the Patriot Act, and so on, a lot of them violate the Constitution but they get away with it anyways.

Getting back to states rights, in some ways, the weaking of them is good such as equal treatment under the law for Blacks where we got rid of White and Colored water fountains, sections in sports stadia, busses, going to the school in your district no matter what color your skin is, going to the college of your choice based on grades and tuition, not your skin color, and so on. I think tramping on states through the use of blackmail as in highway funds and the like is wrong though so there has to be limits on Federal power. There has to be a balance somewhere.

I guess in the case of Terri, the Federal Government would be doing it's job if it did save her life, that's what the government should do, protect all of our lives be it from the Red Chinese, the criminal in the street or some judge railroading some poor girl on a feeding tube at the blessing of her reprobate of a husband.