Posted on 07/27/2011 7:01:25 PM PDT by ejdrapes
Rick Perry Categorizes Abortion as a States' Rights Issue Despite holding personal pro-life beliefs, Texas Gov. Rick Perry categorized abortion as a states’ rights issue today, saying that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, it should be up to the states to decide the legality of the procedure. “You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don’t,” Perry told reporters after a bill signing in Houston. “You can’t believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then [for] something that doesn’t suit you say, 'We’d rather not have states decide that.'” The 10th Amendment reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
July 27, 2011 8:32 PM
ABC News' Arlette Saenz (@arlettesaenz) reports:
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.abcnews.com ...
The Gerald R. Ford position, exactly.
Reagan was a personhood, Fourteenth Amendment prolifer.
Which is why the GOP platform has been a personhood, Fourteenth Amendment platform for the last twenty seven years.
Which other unalienable rights do you think the states can alienate if they want?
That would be the practical effect of overturning Roe v Wade anyway. What matters most is if he will appoint conservative judges who will overturn Roe. From that point the states can begin banning abortion on their own.
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No, it would not. The candidate I supports supports a reversal of Roe v. Wade AND an Amendment granting rights to the unborn.
Perry’s defferal to the States is a lame cop-out.
I’m disappointed.
Do you have any evidence to present that this was the intent of the people who wrote and ratified that amendment, or are we working off of "penumbras and emanations"?
IF we assume that we will not see a day when there is a Federal ban on abortion, then you have to ask yourself, “What steps can we take to reduce the number of abortions in America?”
A good start might be to allow individual states to outlaw abortion.
Having said that, I’m not thrilled with a presidential candidate suggesting that abortion is a state’s rights issue.
Perry is dead wrong. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments say that powers not delegated to the federal government are reserved to the states or TO THE PEOPLE, and that the enumeration of certain powers is not to be interpreted as derogating other powers reserved to the states and to the people.
Human babies are part of THE PEOPLE. THE PEOPLE are sovereign, not the states.
No state has the power to declare that some people may be murdered with impunity.
The first states to “legalize” abortion should have been expelled from the Union. The fact that they were not changes nothing. They ought to have been. When the Supreme Court pretended to have the power to prohibit laws against abortion, the governors should have nullified Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. The fact that they did not changes nothing. They still have the obligation to do so, even if it is forty years too late.
Just as with legalized slavery, legalized abortion is a cancer. It is irreconcilable with the Declaration and the Constitution, and if tolerated, it will eventually bring the destruction of the Union.
Don’t get me wrong, I want Roe V Wade overturned. Sending it back to the States is a good first step. But I still fail to see how murder can be considered a States rights issue.
Rick Perry Categorizes Abortion as a States’ Rights Issue
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If Perry believes that, then why hasn’t he moved ahead and had Texas declare abortion an act of murder?
I’m afraid Perry is pro-life as far as he’s concerned, but OK with the pro-choice argument.
Not good.
It seems to me we ought not pick and choose when to invoke state’s rights. We either believe we are a union of states each with the mandate to govern themselves or not. We’ve already seen how this has worked out in the hands of the federal government. At least I would have the option of moving to/living in a state that most reflected my moral and political viewpoints. Not so when the federal government gets to decide for all of us.
So if a State decided to make it legal to kill mentally retarded people that would be OK under the guise of “States rights”? I fail to see how murder is a States right. What part of life, liberty and the persuit of happiness includes a states right to legalize murder?
I agree with Perry too. While I believe the Roe v. Wade decision was completely wrong and a vile disgregard for our inalienable rights, it currently is the law of the land.
The REAL question we should ask Perry is if he would appoint federal judges who would be willing to overturn RvW when given the chance.
If you forever insist on all or nothing, count on nothing.
I don’t want any abortions, ever.
The only path I can envision is to reduce the number of abortions, is to do it a bit at a time.
State by state, is a pretty good bit.
Agree!
I believe that Roe V Wade ruled pretty much along those lines. In practice, the right for a woman to murder her unborn children has been declared absolute.
They already do. Abortion is not special. It is murder just the same as walking up and shooting somebody. And prosecution of such a crime belongs at the state level.
Perry is right, if Roe were overturned the issue would automatically revert back to the states.
Actually the federal government never made abortion legal, the supreme court did.
This is because our government, the federal government, has never passed a federal law outlawing or legalizing abortion that I am aware of.
” All Congress has to do is find that a human fetus is a “person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment,” and Roe v. Wade becomes a scrap of paper. “ <<<<
Your argument is correct and does not dilute Perry’s constitutional declaration of states rights, based on law as it exists today. Pro Life people understand the complicity of the Supreme Court in abortion. These would include Rick Perry.
Read the Fourteenth Amendment. What it says is the law. No state may deny any person the equal protection of the laws. Either homicide is illegal or it is illegal. It cannot be illegal to murder some people, and legal to murder other people. The fact that the amendment was written with the primary purpose of guaranteeing equality before the law to former slaves and to negroes is irrelevant. The amendment is made of words, and the word used is not “former slave” or “negro,” but “person.”
Roe v. Wade says that if Congress finds that a fetus is a “person within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment,” then “appellant’s [Roe’s} case collapses.”
It is obvious that Perry has given the whole issue of abortion and the Constitution about thirty seconds’ thought, probably while jumping in or out of a limousine.
The XIVth Amendment guarantees everyone in America the right to life at the federal level. Perry is wronger than wrong.
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