Which other unalienable rights are you going to turn over to state decision-making?
Try hard not to be an ass.
I’m not turning anything over to the states. I didn’t design the constitutional order. That job was before my time and above my pay grade.
The framers gave us a federal system, in large part, for the purpose of defusing bitter disputes by diffusing them. The bitterest dispute in our politics for a generation has had to do with abortion. All I am suggesting is that state and local politics should be allowed to defuse the abortion dispute by giving people a chance to debate, compromise and find common ground.
I know that compromise in this area seems like an outrage. But keep in mind that the goal of the pro-life movement is not merely to change the law. The goal is to change the culture. You can’t move toward that goal by pressing for a constitutional amendment that would make abortion a crime nationwide in nearly every case. Crusading for the HLA only hardens the forces of death and wins them sympathy from people the pro-life movement needs to reach. Passing an HLA would only provoke them to civil disobedience.
A diffuse process in fifty states has the potential to move the culture substantially. When you can’t move an object all at once, you may have success moving it a bit at a time. If pro-life politicians can tailor their arguments to local conditions and pick their fights wisely they may make substantial progress. That’s as good as it gets. Law and politics can’t do more for the pro-life movement than that.
The idea that all we have to do is pass a magic amendment and the universe will once again unfold as it should is juvenile nonsense. Law doesn’t have that kind of power. Fred knows that, and so does NRTL.