[SuziQ]

I think Fred Thompson has seen just how fractured this country got when the Supreme Court decided overnight to negate all abortion laws with one fell swoop. He's seen what has happened in the last 34 years since the decision, both with the increase in support up till the mid 80's, and the gradual decline since. He knows that there will be much more work to do to change peoples hearts and minds before anything can be done at a national level. If people are brought back gradually to a point that the idea of abortion except in VERY rare circumstances in heinous, it will be easier to get a full Constitutional amendment. Until then, it will just be more of the same, unless Roe-v-Wade is overturned and the matter is returned to the states.

As far as the Constitution being respectful of life, remember, it took many years before a large number of inhabitants of this nation were recognized as citizens, and thus protected, under that document. The founders looked at the political reality and made the decision that they would not press the slavery issue because that would be too fractious there at the beginning of trying to get a nation up and running. So there has always been compromise in the political realm.

[Gelato]

...change peoples hearts and minds...

I respectfully disagree.

Remember, the people did not legalize abortion, and it is therefore not their hearts that must change.

It was forced upon us swiftly, and swiftly it can be abolished--under the right leadership. It exists only by virtue of judicial lunacy rather than actual law. Involving the states in this question is both unnecessary and unconstitutional, and an incremental approach will never work.

We are united states for the purposes outlined in the Preamble. What we need is an executive who understands that fact, the way Lincoln understood it.

Face it, this is not Fred's issue.