I'm so confused by his answers. Has anyone determined what his precise position on this issue is? http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/issues/95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm Am I interpreting this statement (above link) correctly? He wants it to be a 'states right issue,' yet he supports the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade? Aren't these two incompatible? The Supreme Court can't overturn Roe v. Wade if states' rights are to be respected. In other words, you can't have the highest court in the land have the final say on this issue if you allow each state in the union to make its own determination (and legislation to be respected). Do you see the inherent conflict in his very platform statement?
I think I can clear up your confusion. There is nothing inherently contradictory in his position. The Supreme Court obviously can overturn one of its own decisions, in this case a decision that took the issue away from the democratic process and made it a matter of a newly announced constitutional right. The states' rights aspect is that each state, after Roe is overturned, would be able to make an indepedent determination of how to handle abortion. It can't become a state issue however until Roe is overturned.
So, McCain believes that Roe v. Wade should be overturned, and then states should individually be free to either allow or disallow abortion, and that they should be free to determine at what stage abortion should be regulated, proscribed, prohibited (or not)? That's awfully inefficient, and at the end of the day, doesn't it still mean that McCain believes that [G]overnment has both the right to get involved or the right to prohibit itself from intervening in such matters? I can't think of a more wishy-washy policy statement than one such as that. McCain seems to want to please everyone. 'I'm against abortion, Roe v. Wade should be overturned as the federal government has no right to mandate a constitutional right to an abortion, yet individual states do have such a right.'