But your last statement, that PBA doesn’t preempt any conversation we have to have, is unsupported. You seem to say that if there’s enough support to pass a law, then we can do so because everybody’s OK with it, and if there isn’t enough support to pass a law, it’s too contentious to impose from above.
But on a state-by-state basis, you COULD find majorities who oppose the PBA ban imposed by the federal government. Since nothing in the constitution suggests that regulating abortion is a federal function, and as others have (I think mistakenly) claimed, there is no federal “murder” laws, it seems that the PBA ban is an undue interference in a legitimate state activity of determining exactly what abortions will be legal and which won’t be.
However, that said, you have done an excellent job of explaining how one would vote for PBA and not vote for the amendment. There obviously is a line that will be drawn to determine which things are well-settled enough for a federal law, and which aren’t. I just think under that argument all 50 states would pass PBA — there’s no compelling reason why every state’s law must be the same, no “interstate commerce” claim that having differing PBA laws somehow interferes with the relationship between the states.
But that argument is not Fred’s dance. When he makes a federalist case against the human life amendment he isn’t talking about the theoretical limits of federal power. He’s talking about the limits of federal competence.
When our society is faced with contentious issues our political institutions have to work out a reconciliation. Fred’s argument against the human life amendment rests on the insight that most of this work needs to be done at the state level. This doesn’t mean that there is no role for the federal government only that the federal role is a small one.
It was in my view (and Fred’s) perfectly appropriate for the federal government to say that the barbarity of PBA has no place in the U.S. The PBA ban didn’t take much of anything away from the states. It sets a lax outer limit on our national tolerance for barbarism and leaves all the hard decisions open. I dont’ mean to suggest that every jurisdiction in the country would adopt the federal PBA ban if it were put to a referendum. Only that the federal PBA ban leaves us plenty of fodder for the national conversation we so desperately need to have.
Like Roe v. Wade before it, a human life amendment would preempt that conversation. It would mandate an extremely restrictive abortion policy nationwide leaving no incentive and no scope for political reconcilliation. That would be a Pyrrhic victory for social conservatives and a tragedy for the nation.
The federal system was devised precisely to avoid that sort of tragedy. Fred couldn’t be more perfectly on point.
But that argument is not Fred’s dance. When he makes a federalist case against the human life amendment he isn’t talking about the theoretical limits of federal power. He’s talking about the limits of federal competence.
When our society is faced with contentious issues our political institutions have to work out a reconciliation. Fred’s argument against the human life amendment rests on the insight that most of this work needs to be done at the state level. This doesn’t mean that there is no role for the federal government only that the federal role is a small one.
It was in my view (and Fred’s) perfectly appropriate for the federal government to say that the barbarity of PBA has no place in the U.S. The PBA ban didn’t take much of anything away from the states. It sets a lax outer limit on our national tolerance for barbarism and leaves all the hard decisions open. I dont’ mean to suggest that every jurisdiction in the country would adopt the federal PBA ban if it were put to a referendum. Only that the federal PBA ban leaves us plenty of fodder for the national conversation we so desperately need to have.
Like Roe v. Wade before it, a human life amendment would preempt that conversation. It would mandate an extremely restrictive abortion policy nationwide leaving no incentive and no scope for political reconciliation. That would be a Pyrrhic victory for social conservatives and a tragedy for the nation.
The federal system was devised precisely to avoid that sort of tragedy. Fred couldn’t be more perfectly on point.