The child is a human person. But we have laws now that make it less of a crime to kill a 1-day-old than to kill a 20-year-old. I don’t agree with them either, but I haven’t seen the pro-life crowd pushing for mandatory penalties for women who kill their newborns.
The point isn’t that Perry, or others who support states rights, want abortion to be legal. It’s that the structure of our government allows the states great leeway in deciding which acts of killing will be punished, and in what way.
This means that some states have made it a minor crime for a distraught woman to kill her husband if he’s been abusive; other states allow you to kill an unarmed intruder if he has broken into your house.
None of those variations depend on whether the husband or the burglar are considered persons or not — they are all considered persons. The question is simply whether the unborn should receive special protection under federal law.
I would note that federal employees have that protection, hence killing a federal judge is a federal crime, and is prosecuted equally in all 50 states. Should the feds pass a law that all unborn are considered federal wards, and therefore killing them will be prosecuted under federal law? I’d support that law, but I think it would violate constitutional principles.
Which I don’t really like doing, but 30 million kids are dead, and I don’t think states will act quickly enough.
You know that when we overturn Roe, a lot of states are going to allow abortion until some point in the pregnancy. A lot or going to allow the illogical “rape/incest” exceptions. I favor banning all abortions after implantation, but don’t think that will be the law in most states, nor do I think we’d get a majority of the people to approve such a law at a state or federal level.
Just because there are variations in how murder is prosecuted, it doesn’t mean that murder can be “legal.”
Every state must defend the life of every innocent person within their jurisdiction. They must provide for the equal protection of the laws.
The Fourteenth Amendment simply leaves no wiggle room on this. It is in no way optional.