Monday, January 24, 2011

Why We March | National Catholic Reporter

Why We March National Catholic Reporter by Michael Sean Winters

My reaction:

In most jurisdictions, abortion was not considered manslaughter. It was considered the equivalent of killing a puppy.

Overturning Roe judicially would actually make things worse, at least in the way that Scalia would do it, by denying federal supremacy on the question. Now, the way Justice Clarence Thomas would do it, by not allowing the states latitude but instead declaring the humanity of the unborn, might not.

The experience of slavery showed how a multi-state solution to this problem will not work. Indeed, overturning Roe would simply have more people travel to other states for abortion than they do currently (or to other countries), while those who cannot afford to travel would seek back alley abortions again (as some do now). Also, overturning Roe in this way would also gut other federal precident on equal protection.

That would be worse.

The March for Life is destructive because it focuses on Roe, which though unjust to the unborn, was constitutional (because the Constitution is unjust to the unborn until the Congress uses its power to make it not so). As long as Roe is the focus, the movement remains locked in the pipe dream of its removal and will find itself in the swarmy embrace of the Federalist Society and its fringe theories about the rights of states.

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