I hear frequently two things from the right wing: 1. Abortion is murder. 2. The state, not the federal government should decide if abortion is legal. Are the above ideas compatible? Is it possible for people in one state to believe that abortion is murder and legislate against it, and have no problem with a neighbor state allowing abortions? Take a city like Kansas City. Imagine the state of Kansas takes a position that abortion is murder, and the state of Missouri takes a position that abortion is not murder and a woman should have a right to choose. Practically what happens? A woman from Kansas who wants an abortion drives to Kansas City Mo. from Kansas City KS. and gets her abortion. She drives a few miles back to her home in Kansas City KS. Is she still guilty of murder in Kansas? Is she allowed back into Kansas without fear of criminal prosecution? Do we see abortion clinics spring up on the other side of the street from Kansas City KS. so that people have easy access to an abortion? Is it like Nevada who used to have quickie divorces? Is it like people who go over the border to Canada to buy cheaper prescription drugs? You really think the "Abortion is Murder States" are going to be content with a neighbor state that allows abortions? We once had slave states and non slave states, where we had an underground railroad to get the slave states to freedom. Will we then have an underground railroad for women who want abortions? Prohibition doesn't work, history has shown that. The right wing in no way can rationalize the belief that abortion is murder and neighbor states engage in "murder" quietly and without tremendous conflict on many levels. The right wings wants to outlaw abortions in every state, just like they want to outlaw gay marriage in every state. The mission is not really about state rights at all, it is about controlling what all women can do with their bodies, what all people can do in the context of relationships, etc. The right wings doesn't believe in a two party system, they want a one party system and a religious state based on their religion. Fundamentally no different than the Muslim states in the Middle East. Real freedom and liberty are not the goal at all, rather compliance with their belief system is the goal.
Is it possible for people in one state to believe that abortion is murder and legislate against it, and have no problem with a neighbor state allowing abortions? ------------------------- If abortion is a political issue and not a constitutional issue, then yes. The majority of public political opinion agree to abortion that it is lawful in one state. If in the neighboring state the majority believe it is murder, then politically is is legislated as murder.
I don't think you are addressing the issue. My question goes to the state that abolishes abortion because they think it is murder tolerating a neighbor state allowing what in their opinion is murder. Would they try to prosecute women who went across the state line for an abortion for murder? I find it very hard to imagine those states who think abortion being murder being cool with their neighboring state allowing residents to go across the border to get an abortion. I don't see the intellectual consistency in taking a moral position, legislating on the basis of that, and then not minding what their residents do in another state...not to even speak of what the doctors who live in the abortion allowed state. This is not like a state that prohibits gambling where the residents who want to gamble but are not allowed to do so legally in their own state because of a gambling prohibition go to Las Vegas to gamble then return to their home state with no fear of punishment. Imagine going to another state to murder your "child" then coming home without concern of murder charges and prosecution for murder waiting when you return... It is not logically and intellectually consistent, which is why the states rights issue by the right wing is a canard and is actually a wedge issue in which their genuine goal is to abolish abortion in every state, not just give the state the right to decide what to do.
It is not logically and intellectually consistent, which is why the states rights issue by the right wing is a canard and is actually a wedge issue in which their genuine goal is to abolish abortion in every state, not just give the state the right to decide what to do. -------------------------- I agree.
You pose an interesting question, but the answer is pretty simple. A state can only proscribe conduct within its borders or which causes injury within its borders. The speed limit in state A is 70, in state B 60. State B cannot issue tickets to its citizens for exceeding its speed limit while in state A. To do otherwise would be an affront to federalism. State B could prosecute people who fired mortars from state A into State B. The effect was felt in B. You mischaracterize the opposition to Roe v. Wade. it is not about the federal government or the state government deciding. It is about the federal judiciary taking over a matter that is properly the job of the voters of individual states or their elected representatives. Allowing difficult issues to be preempted by judicial fiat is profoundly anti-democratic.
"You mischaracterize the opposition to Roe v. Wade. it is not about the federal government or the state government deciding. It is about the federal judiciary taking over a matter that is properly the job of the voters of individual states or their elected representatives. Allowing difficult issues to be preempted by judicial fiat is profoundly anti-democratic." BS. 1. The right wing claims abortion is murder of a child. 2. Murder of a child is not a states rights issue, as no state could decide by vote of its residents that murder of a child is legal and be consistent with the US constitution. 3. Therefore abortion is not a state rights issue as the right wing claims it to be, and the claim that abortion is a states rights issue is intellectually dishonest and logically inconsistent. Your comments are nothing more than a confirmation of the intellectual and logical dishonesty by the right wing I refer to.
Allowing difficult issues to be preempted by judicial fiat is profoundly anti-democratic. ---------------- Should the supreme court "listen" to the majority of Americans?
No, you mischaracterize the opposition to Roe v. Wade. For some it may be as you say but for many others it is exactly as ZZZzzzzzzz stated it: this is just a wedge issue in a long war to ban all abortions in the USA. We pro-choicers weren't born yesterday.
The question is, who decides? Liberals see an issue on which they do not have public opinion on their side, and immediately they want the courts to decide it. Some activist judges make up a phony "constitutional right" and suddenly a part of our democracy has been chipped away. For all the liberal bleating about Bush trashing the Constitution, you are in favor of ignoring it if you like the result. Anyone who is intellectually honest knows that is what the debate over Roe is all about. The ourcome is all liberals care about, not the Constitution. Ends justifies the means. Liberals have always tended to distrust the ordinary voters anyway, so for them, it is no big deal to cut back on democratic rights.
No, that is not the point. They shouldn't be deciding issues that are properly the responsibility of the state legislatures. They invent phony constitutional rights to take over these issues and ensure an "enlightened" outcome.