Posted by
Andrews on Monday, March 16, 2009 12:29:41 PM
I think the president should not have a position on abortion. At least not officially. I am not saying the president should not have an opinion, every human should, but when it comes to the legality of abortion, I think the president should have no position.
Before anyone gets upset, the answer is simple. Despite
Roe v Wade, I still believe abortion is essentially a criminal justice question, and criminal questions belong in the states. So the president should have no more of a position on abortion than he should have on whether to zone Reed Street C-2 or C-3. State questions are matters for the states to decide, and, ideally, abortion is a state matter.
Of course, our current situation does not allow a president the luxury of handing criminal questions back to the states. Not only has the federal government intruded improperly into state criminal questions, especially since the expansion of FBI authority in 1934, but
Roe has removed the ability of states to decide the question for themselves. So, unfortunately, the president needs to involve himself in matters which, to be honest, are
BELOW his pay grade.
However, the solution to this situation is not to impose the "right" solution from above, but rather to return the question to the place it belongs, the states. Decisions about criminal questions, like zoning questions, or school board selections, should not be made by the president of the United States.
Of course many will disagree, arguing that abortion is so obviously wrong that it should be banned nationwide, but I would argue that is not the proper approach. Murder, arson and burglary are also clearly wrong, yet we have left each in the hands of the states, so why should abortion be handled differently?
Though the principle has been lost in the growth of the federal government, we are still
a federation of sovereign states, and criminal matters should, and still mostly are, handled by the individual states. Yes, the federal government has unjustly arrogated some of that role to itself through the FBI, the DEA, criminal prosecutions under antitrust laws, and so on, but that does not mean we should abandon that principle.
And if abortion became a state matter once more, it would bring great benefits.
As I described before, right now one side or the other need only convince 5 judges to win the entire fight. If we were to return the question to the state, the decision would rest in the hands of the legislatures of 50 states, making it unlikely either side could win completely, but also making the fight much less vicious. When a single battle can win the entire conflict, it tends to bring out greater anger than when one needs to win through long, slow persuasion of many, many legislatures.
So, ideally, a president would not be concerned with the laws about abortion, nor about any criminal laws. Of course,
in my ideal world, a president would not concern himself with much besides the defense of the US and relations with foreign powers, but I doubt I will ever see that come to pass. Still, every bit of power we can remove from the federal government is a bit of power that is that much more responsive to public opinion. Once something is a state matter, it becomes responsive to the opinions of tens of thousands of state voters, maybe even fewer, instead of the millions it takes to get notice on a federal level.
And in the end, isn't that for the best? To make the law responsive to the public? Yes, some would be happy to see abortion outlawed by judicial decree on a federal level, but would that not be just as unstable a victory as the pro-choice side has now? Isn't it better to have a victory based on broad public support which will not so quickly vanish with the change in one member of the court?
Well, that is what state decisions offer. Ye,s ti will take work and a lot of persuasion to win over every state, but in the interim, returning the question to the states offers something our current system does not, partial victory. Now either one side wins everything or loses everything, the 50 states offer 50 chances at victory, and is it not better to have 20 or 30 sympathetic states rather than 50 states forced to obey the opposite position?