How often does this happen?
I agree with Ted Rall. Not when he calls the Federalist Society a "far-right cadre of scary college kids who worship Ayn Rand, dress like Tucker Carlson and care deeply about your sex life," but a few grafs further down, when he says this:
In a sick way, the end of Roe v. Wade may turn out to be a net positive for America. For one thing, Roe was a legally dubious decision based on flawed constitutional logic. Rather than pass abortion rights into law, 14 cowardly congresses and seven weasely presidents have relied on the 1973 ruling to avoid taking political fire from the Bible-thumpers.
Unlike Rall, I don't see the reversal of Roe as a fait accompli, but I do believe that women's rights have been extremely poorly served by feminist groups and abortion rights activists, who have put all their eggs the single basket of shoring up this one dubious, thirty-year-old Supreme Court decision. The abortion rights crowd was negligent not to devote more energy to safeguarding those rights through the legislative process.
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Safeguarding those rights legislatively in the past proved to be quite a difficult thing. In the 60's, all 50 states outlawed abortion, except for certain situations. In the early 70's, a couple of states voted to allow abortions, with a few other states having "de facto" abortions legalized. Still, the vast majority of women who wanted abortions had to travel to one of these few states to legally abort.
Suppose Roe vs. Wade were overturned, and states once again decided to outlaw abortion. We'd be back in the situation we were in the 60's and before, with women not being able to make the most personal decision possible without breaking the law. Roe vs. Wade said that these state laws outlawing abortion were unconstitutional.
Posted by: Tracy Miller | July 27, 2005 11:12 PM
Here's the good news: Liberalism is often inherited. (nature, nurture, who cares?) Since a majority of those seeking to abort are Liberals, simple demographics will increase the conservative majority as time goes on.
Posted by: Paul Moore | July 28, 2005 05:25 AM