[EternalVigilance]

They left the "protection of life" to the States.

No, they didn't. They stated the equal protection of the God-given, unalienable right to life as being the first and most important raison d'etre, or reason for existence, of ALL governments.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men..."

[tacticalogic]

Show me something in the historical record that indicates they intended and understood the Constitution to ban the practice of abortion, and empowered the national government to enforce that ban on the States, and you'll have a case. I'm not telling you it isn't there, because I have not read everything there is about it, and I'm not about to embark on trying to prove a negative. If it is there, I haven't seen it, but if you can find it it's definitely worth pursuing.

Asking what I think about it will get you evidence of support for an amendment, but will not get you any evidence of what the original intent of the Constitution or the 14th Amendment were. I'm not going to engage in or condone reading things into it they never considered or intended when they wrote it.