Why do you oppose allowing states to decide their own abortion laws?

No authority should be able to rule over a womans right to choose and over their bodies in general.

[quote]If it's not in the constitution, which abortion isn't, it's left up to the state to decide - as long as state laws don't violate the constitution.[/quote]

It actually is in the Constitution. The First Amendment reads,

[quote]Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.[/quote]

Prohibitions on abortion are overwhelmingly fueled by Christian fundamentalism; therefore, banning abortion is a way of establishing Christianity as the state religion and is unconstitutional.

[quote]A woman's right to protect her own life is a constitutional right. All states that have abortion laws have a provision that allows women to terminate their pregnancy in those life-threatening situations.[/quote]

All pregnancy is life-threatening, babe; we're talking about a woman's organs getting stuffed up in the direction of her ribcage, and eventually, her vagina splitting so far apart as to push out an entire baby. The number of things that can go wrong for a woman in this situation, [i]especially[/i] under a privatized healthcare system where not everyone can afford adequate maternity care, is quite high.

No, because human rights shouldn't be left to the states.
And even if you do think abortion should be left to the states, Republicans are also trying to make it illegal to get an abortion in a neighboring state. They don't actually care about states' rights.

Several states have passed laws forbidding women from traveling to other states for abortions.

But I take it you would oppose a federal law against abortion because “the states should decide?”

At the one level I really don’t have a problem with states legislating the own abortion laws.

What bothers me is OB-GYN’s being unwilling to treat complex pregnancies because they are worried state abortion laws, which can be quite specific, will take their licenses and/or put them in prison. As an example, ectopic pregnancies. There is no standing state abortion law that bans treating ectopic pregnancies. Yet in some cases hospitals and doctors are reluctant to treat such things less they cross the line in the eyes of some observer. Of course there is no statutory basis for this. But of course this exactly what I would expect to see in social systems. And so we see doctors waiting to see a woman’s labs go south, or an ectopic pregnancy to rupture, to manage their own risks.

At another level, I can’t accept legislation that impinges on privacy and agency, and healthcare is about as private as it gets. There is no evidence states will be good faith partners in protecting citizen privacy. I am thinking of Ohio bill HB 413 that insisted that ectopic pregnancies be “implanted” in the uterus. So people so clueless of OB-GYN were attempting to legislate the actual care of women in off book procedures that would not have saved fetal life anyway.

Which is where I feel all of this is going. A total lack of privacy and agency legislated at state levels to satisfy idiosyncratic and very local ideals. Guarantees of not only abortion, but gay marriage, decriminalization of gay sex, guarantees to access to contraception, all revoked.

Why should a document written over 200 years ago get to dictate the future with it's priorities? That's the equivalent of never getting to go to your room until your plate is clean because your parents told you when you were little that you can't. It's ridiculous to expect people to blindly follow the rules established by those that have long been dead.

The constitution is not the end all and be all of human existence. It's just a template on how to run a country. It's not in the Constitution to decide what to do if an asteroid comes hurtling towards Earth, so do you seriously expect the rest of the world to sit with their thumbs up our asses waiting on the Supreme Court to decide whether it's constitutional for NASA to blow it up?

But to answer the question more directly, one simply needs to look towards the 14th Amendment.
[quote][b]All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States[/b]; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.[/quote]

Simply put, a fetus is not subject to the protection of the law because they have not been born. They do not count as a person within the eyes of the law, so by counting them as a person in order protect their life is violating several clauses of this amendment.

and life doesn't always make it easy to pick and move to another whole state. Especially considering this country has larger regions that tend to vote the same way, it may a 1,000 mile move, not a 5 mile move.

as far as the Constitution, there is something called an Amendment, of which there are already 20-some amendments on the books.

Simple, abortions are nobody else’s business besides the person getting the abortion and whomever is doing the procedure.

States should be free to decide if they want legal weed and legal abortions .

That's how it is in Afghanistan too.

I think because it's a contradiction to the concept of freedom. They have the freedom to restrict a very basic freedom which is weird.

Doesn't really effect me since I am not a woman. So, I'm indifferent.

Whether abortion is legal or not doesnt effect my life in the slightest.

In words the constitution gives more Rights to the baby than the choice of abortion.

If one truly believers abortion to be murder, then they are not content with murder happening in another state. Murder as we know is illegal in all 50 states. The "let the states decide" status quo is likely temporary and several politicians have spoken of a federal abortion ban.

we are a united states.
this law was over 50 years old and it is taking a rights of a woman away to choose how she treats her body and life. . there will be reasons why it is needed. baby is brain dead in the womb or the 10 year old child was raped. or .....

In many of those states the majority still want their rights.

But also, human rights are not a thing that should be allowed to be legislated away.