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

If you want to live in a state that allows abortion, you are free to reside in that state. If a woman wants an abortion, they are free to travel to that state and get an abortion. The tenth amendment gives states some degree of sovereignty:

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

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. 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. Beyond that, there's nothing in the constitution that would give a woman the right to murder her own baby.

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SW-User

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

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dale74 · M

@SW-User a woman who is single who has children receives assisted living not a great place to live but it's a house they get for utilities they get free telephone free internet free TV such as cable service they get food generally for the mother herself she gets approximately $270 I think it's an additional $200 for each child she gets free health care and the children all get free healthcare but she is deeply penalized if she goes and tries to get a job that pays any type of money if she is married and has a husband then she has been alive because he has a job.

SW-User

@dale74 It's good that the single mom gets such benefits i didn't know that they get supported like that in the US system.
Of course having a family and a job shouldn't mean that support stops that's bad.

dale74 · M

@SW-User but it does and even though it has been proven children in a two parent family are much more psychologically well balanced. Than a single parent household. Most abortion clinics in the United yare located in poor or minority areas. In the United States if a woman doesn't want the child it can be adopted before birth or dropped off at any fire station and no harm no faul the mother can walk away. We have may options available to pregnancy making it less of an inconvenience for the mother a pregnant mother is covered at our hospital for free if no insurance.

BlueVeins · 22-25

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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, especially under a privatized healthcare system where not everyone can afford adequate maternity care, is quite high.

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BlueVeins · 22-25

@dale74 And what of it?

dale74 · M

@BlueVeins i have no problem with 18-25 yr olds ending their life should that no be a choice for control of your own body. And if you want to discuss control why not keep from getting your gf pregnant.

easterniowegin · 51-55, M

@BlueVeins but 3.6million live births makes the survival rate 99.98%. That is the very definition of anecdotal.

John Adams said that the US Constitution was created for a moral people and that it was wholly inadequate to any other. You're proving his point, sadly.

It is too bad that you feel only religious ppl have morals.
What are your thoughts on a double-homicide classification for killing a pregnant woman? That seems contradictory, right?!

BohemianBabe · M

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.

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easterniowegin · 51-55, M

@dale74 yeah, these idiots are unwilling to engage a search engine. Not only must you spoon-feed them, you must include a trusted source so that they can be told what to think while there.

The amount of twenty-something "experts" is astounding...esp when they struggle with actual fact finding.

dale74 · M

@easterniowegin just remember they're from a generation after us or two generations after us. Life's just too easy for him he probably doesn't even know how to use an encyclopedia set that can't be changed by political views.

easterniowegin · 51-55, M

@dale74 they are certainly the epitome of "weak men create bad times".
I still cannot understand how ppl can choose to be so ignorant nowadays.

LeopoldBloom · M

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?”

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RocktheHouse · M

@Pikachu

why are you bringing up gay marriage?

Obergefell v. Hodges is next on the chopping block. Quite frankly, The state should make a decision to either allow all marriage to take place, including polygamy or get out of the business of marriage altogether. If government is secular, the government should not be involved in granting marriage which has historically been a religious institution.

Pikachu

@RocktheHouse

I think the polygamy thing tends to enable abuse but i don;t know much about it...so again, why did you bring up gay marriage?

If vaccination was necessary to protect life, yes. If there was a deadly virus that could potentially wipe out humanity and people were refusing to get vaccinated

And if humanity required women to carry children to term in order to survive then i'd be in favour outlawing abortion.

But you're side-stepping my question.
We're not talking about apocalyptic, world-ending outcomes here. We're simply talking about bodily autonomy.
You say there is no constitutional protection for a woman's right to control her body.
Is there a constitutional right to control yours in the face of vaccination? And if not are you generally in favour of the government being able to force vaccination upon you?

LeopoldBloom · M

@RocktheHouse A state could completely outlaw secular marriage, but if they allow hetero marriage, they have to allow same-sex marriage. It's like if you have a business, you can't refuse to serve Black customers if you serve white customers. Of course, conservatives don't believe in civil rights either, but then they scream the loudest if anyone questions the assumed superiority of white people.

You didn't answer if you would oppose a national ban on abortion. Since according to you, the Constitution doesn't mention abortion, Congress has no authority to outlaw it nationwide, correct? Or "states rights" goes out the window when Congress passes a law you like?

I'm married (to a woman if you're wondering) and I'd be pretty pissed if my state invalidated my marriage just to keep gay people from getting married, and I don't think I'd be alone. There is no rational reason to withhold marriage from same-sex couples other than blatant homophobia.

CopperCicada · M

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.

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

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.

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; 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.

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.

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TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@Slade Well he died in 1938, so I'm gonna need a time machine first

Slade · 56-60, M

@TinyViolins Well get into it HG Wells, and go back further and stop those stupid men from writing a paper acknowledging inalienable rights

TinyViolins · 31-35, M

@Slade [media=https://youtu.be/m9-R8T1SuG4]

RoxClymer · 41-45, M

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.

Semya · 22-25, M

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

Slade · 56-60, M

@Semya Anything you say prodigy

AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M

@Semya I’ve never heard a guy say his unborn baby is none of his business .

AthrillatheHunt · 51-55, M

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

PiecingBabyFaceTogether · 31-35, M

That's how it is in Afghanistan too.

RocktheHouse · M

@PiecingBabyFaceTogether Women respect men in Afghanistan. We could learn a thing or two from the Taliban.

SW-User

@RocktheHouse And here we have the unmitigated true sympathies of the "new right".

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

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.

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RocktheHouse · M

@Ryannnnnn Does the child's inability to speak disenfranchise the child's right to live? The unborn baby, fetus or embryo - cluster of cells, fetal tissue - doesn't matter what words you use to describe the unborn child - is a living developing heart-beating human that has the ability to feel pain and experience emotions. This is not just the mother's body we are talking about here. If there wasn't a human life involved, do you think we would be unset about the termination of pregnancy? The problem is termination of pregnancy involves taking away a life.

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

@RocktheHouse Depends on the subjective definition of alive. A cluster of cells isn't a baby.
Also we get into the territory of forcing a woman to birth a child born from forced sex, younger women being forced to birth children from incest etc. They're the real victims of these policies and it's not up to men to decide women's personal problems in regards to their own bodies.

Ryannnnnn · 31-35, M

@RocktheHouse Tbh the main point is regardless that it's not anyone else's decision to make other than the parent's. When other people start getting involved it just becomes confusing because it is a morally grey area with no right or wrong answer.

Maybe someone is made to give birth because it's the right thing to do in another's eyes, then that child grows up in extreme poverty and likely abandoned by the government as so many are.
I know someone who had an abortion because she was sexually exploited at 14-15 by a pedophile, I wouldn't consider it just or right to force her to carry that through and be stuck raising a child of a pedophile at a young age.

Nobody considers the changes in a woman's body after the fact also, it's a huge thing to go through physically, mentally and emotionally. Not only that but financially, and unfortunately due to the broken systems our world operates under money means everything and we don't look after the most vulnerable. So it's complicated and after many years of thinking it over and debating I've concluded it's none of our business as men or that of the state.

GanglandCriminal97 · 26-30, M

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.

dale74 · M

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

RocktheHouse · M

@dale74 Absolutely! The right to life!

SW-User

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.

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SW-User

@SW-User If a federal ban actually happens then I hope there will be mass protests and riots.

dale74 · M

@SW-User when the left and liberals riot people are killed the people who fight against abortion are doing everything to save mother and child.

SW-User

@SW-User Likely many states will simply not enforce it. That is what happened with the federal marijuana ban after all. States like Colorado and Washington decided they were not going to enforce the federal ban and legalized it.

markansas

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 .....

ViciDraco · 36-40, M

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.

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Slade · 56-60, M

@SW-User Name one.

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