We are dealing with a top-down judicial hijack of states rights following Roe, a decision that fundamentally violated laws upheld by the majority of states in the union in 1973. It is my fear, given the brutal nature of the debate, the emotionalism involved, and the Pandora's Box that has been opened, that this country will never be completely free of abortion. Reduced? Yes. Rare? Hopefully. Gone for good and eradicated? Doubtful. Doubtful because when life is cheap, and when people are desperate or lazy or manipulated or misled, life can be eliminated just as cheaply. We crossed a cultural point of no return in 1973, and we must do what we can to restore what damage has been wrought. Maybe in time I'll be proven wrong. I don't want to be right this time.
But restoring a catastrophic violation of life, limb, and liberty does not start by empowering the federal government with greater autonomy, power, and control. Never has, never will. When it comes to this issue, you guys readily admit, in so many words, that the ends justify the means. What you, and Kevin, and others want to do is trust the same system that removed personhood in the first place to restore it. I'm not sure if you guys are desperate, naive, impatient, pragmatic, or possibly a blend of all four. On the one hand you decry any federal intrusion into the pet personal liberties you advocate, and shrilly oppose the violation of your own sensitivities and freedoms (as you should). Yet on the other you eagerly insist that the same intrusive, nanny state, overbearing, smothering federal government be trusted with the task of making sure abortion is illegalized nationwide in the United States. It's this kind of political and intellectual schizophrenia that has frozen the pro-life movement and kept its progress static since at least the late 1980s.
Slavery, since you mentioned it, was a practice already opposed by the majority of the states that would have with time died a natural death--as opposed to the decidedly unnatural death of over half a million Americans emancipation required thanks to the stubbornness of God-fearing southerners. The refusal of pro-lifers to entertain a willingness to work step by step, piece by piece, state by state, betrays a frustration and exasperation at the very hard, real, grassroots work that ending abortion demands. You would have us run to Uncle Sam hoping we get lucky--at least for a little while, till the next gang of goons overturns the work done by their predecessors. I would say to hell with Uncle Sam in the first place: it was his court that sank us into this mess originally. We, the people, have it within our power to end this atrocity the black cloaked tyrants spawned. You would prefer we ask the fed for a favor and blessing. I recall the words of a certain vitriolic senator from Arizona, and leave you with a paraphrase: A government big enough to declare your personhood is big enough to take it away.
