Which, of course, begs the question:
Other than the supreme right, the right to live, what other unalienable rights should be considered "a state issue"? Speech? Press? Religious liberty? The Right to Keep and Bear Arms? Trial by a jury of your peers? Parental rights? What? If states can "decide" against these rights, have not they alienated what Americans have always called unalienable?
This whole Stephen A. Douglas Democrat concept is a gross denial of the most important cornerstone principles of our free republic, upon which we premise our form of government and our entire claim to liberty.
And other Republicans, like Gerald R. Ford, and Ron Paul, and Rand Paul, and John McCain, and Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney, and Sarah Palin, have gone down the same unconstitutional pro-choice for states, states' rights trump unalienable rights, road.
The broad path to destruction.
Here's my view of things.
Abortion is a species of unjustified homicide. It's a criminal matter. Criminal matters are generally matters that are appropriately addressed at the state level.
Laws against murder and manslaughter are appropriately the province of the states.
Thus, the Supreme Court should return the matter to the states.
However, there is certainly a federal interest in play here. Imagine if a state repealed all its laws against private homicide. Or laws against the private killing of one class of persons. Blacks, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Republicans, homeschoolers. Whatever. It would become a federal issue to vindicate the rights of persons not to be killed privately.
Remember that the Constitution reposes in the federal government the obligation to ensure a republican form of government in each state. It's difficult to figure out how one has a republican form of government in states that refuse to pass laws to deal justly with crimes that violate basic rights.
Thus, playing this out, once Roe was overturned, it would be the right and duty of the states to pass laws regarding abortion.
States that made abortion illegal and that provided some appropriate way in criminal law to vindicate the rights of unborn persons wouldn't need any interference from the federal government.
States that refused to do their duty in this regard should then have imposed on them by the federal government some sort of legal regime to vindicate the rights of unborn persons.
To me, that seems the right way to do things.
But it's a two-step sorta thing - first you gotta return abortion law back to its proper venue - the states. Then, states that refuse to get right, the federal government should act.
Just how I see it.
Let me mention another heresy, LOL.
I'm a Catholic and thus don't believe that any abortion whatsoever should ever be legal in anyway whatsoever. Furthermore, Catholic teaching states that this conclusion is obvious through the application of natural law, and does not require Catholic faith or supernatural grace to come to it. Thus, the Church teaches, and I believe, that ALL MEN ARE OBLIGATED to acknowledge that law may not justly permit abortion. Ever. In any case. Any abortion at all.
Yet, I know that many men's minds are clouded by sin, and it might be a while before I get enough men (and I'm speaking, of course, about all adult humans, not just the males of the species) to vote in accord with these views to put them in place in our representative democracy.
Thus, if states generally, and the federal government when the states are in breach of their obligations, passed laws forbidding abortions except in cases of rape, incest, life of the mother, I'd take that.
At least until the next week. That's 96% of abortions, and it's a good first start.
I'd be back for the other 4%, and yes, I know, it might become well-nigh impossible to get the other four percent, but, hey, I'm not going to sacrifice the lives of 1.2 million kids a year because I haven't been able to rescue the last 50,000.
I know, I know, I'm a “moderate.”
Just remember, EternalVigilance, I'm a moderate who is a lot closer to you than to folks who say they're pro-life but would vote for a pro-abort “because we don't want Obama to win.”
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