Seeing Through the "Federalist" Solution to Abortion

Neil links to very detailed public opinion about abortion. In light of the previous discussion of John McCain, I was particularly interested in this:

“Do you think the question of whether abortion should be legally permitted is something that should be decided at the national level, or is it something that each state should decide for itself?”

National Level 55%

Each State 39%

Unsure 6%

This suggests that, even in the abstract, a surprisingly large percentage of the public recognizes the “federalism” evasion as the unprincipled dodge that it is. The other thing to say is that the majority of the public is, in this case, clearly right: the “leave it to the states” argument, even if it were serious, doesn’t make any sense. If you believe that the state has a sufficient interest in protecting fetal life to make abortion a serious crime, the “federalist” position makes no sense at all–it’s ridiculous to say that a fetus as largely analogous to a baby in Mississippi but is not protected at all if a woman boards a plane to New York. And if you don’t believe this, reproductive rights have been embedded in our constitutional law for decades, and if you don’t think the state has a substantially larger interest in protecting fetal life, these precedents are obviously applicable to abortion: it makes no sense to say that a woman has less interest in reproductive autonomy after she’s pregnant. So unless you think Griswold should be overturned–and the number of pro-choicers who believe this could fit in a phone booth–leaving abortion “to the states” is unacceptable. It’s nice to see that more people than I would have expected understand what the David Brookses of the world don’t.