Brothers,
Your discussion with EV is nearly carbon copy of one I had a month or two back.
I asked him if we allowed states to enable “protection of life” by regulating the laws concerning murder, what was wrong with similar mechanism for abortion. No real answer, just attempts to weasel out of it by saying no state has the right to recognize murder (which is *not* the point of contention, the point is who regulates, defines and enforces the law).
His zeal for the prolife cause is clouding his judgment on matters of limited Government, Constitution, and Federalism.
Abortion can and should be treated in same ways as we treat matters wrt protection of life and property - states regulate property crimes and violence against persons, and even regulate cases such as fetal murder (eg in Texas killing a pregnant woman is a double homicide).
I am pro-life, but I wouldn’t throw away other principles of good Government unnecessarily just to stake out the most possible extreme position on it (a position BTW that is far less likely to be implemented than the simple and constitutionally solid “repeal Roe and return it to the states” position).
Amen, bro.
Of course, that argument was about Romney. No shock that in the end, neither Romney and Thompson give a rip about applying the Fourteenth Amendment to the protection of persons in the womb. In other words, they are out of step with the Reagan Republican pro-life platform.
WOSG and Brothers,
Its ironic that conservative Republican’s like yourselves believe that the federal government must leave abortion up to state governments. This is almost exactly the position that Stephen Douglas took about Slavery. In his famous debates with Abraham Lincoln, Douglas advocated Popular Sovereignty and argued that the citizens of each new teritory should decide whether or not to allow slavery. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, saw slavery as evil and said that the federal government should prevent it from spreading into any of the territories. After the civil war the 14th Amendment was ratified which states that “no state shall deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law” and that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” States which allow abortion are allowing a living person to be deprived of life without any due process of law. Therefore, it is clearly constitutional for the federal government to prohibit abortion under the powers granted to it by the 14th Amendment.