I’d like to add some facts to this discussion that might refocus it on civil rights and mothers’ dominion over their own bodies.
1. When one earns a driver’s license in one state, he is able to drive in every state; moreover, he can get drunk and run down as many humans as possible in any state he chooses. What if I live adjacent to a state in which drunk-driving is ripe—and those drivers are negligently killing citizens in my state? Or, as was the case when I was 18 in Massachusetts, driving into Rhode Island to buy booze? Wouldn’t it be better if federal laws ruled over such situations?
Abortion should never be limited by individual states because the right to control one’s body is a universal (some might say god-given) right. Anti-abortionists favor state’s rights because it’s easier to pack state governments with sympathetic legislators than it is at the federal level. We have states in which governing bodies refuse Affordable Care Act and Medicaid funds for solely political reasons, while their citizens lack proper health care and services. When the Pandemic started, trump immediately tried to dole out supplies based on blue and red states. In that situation, how would YOU feel if you or your loved ones lived in a blue state?
The premise of state’s rights is counter-productive in almost every case, as it prevents America from achieving the best ends for all Americans. This is evidenced by the inequality in education (curriculum and funding) across our nation. Schools in America should be allotted the exact same per capita amount for each resident child, as determined by the federal government--just as we are allowed a specific amount for each dependent on our federal taxes. Perhaps the wealthy might then vote to educate ALL children properly, instead of only those who can afford private and charter schools.
State's rights are currently being used by political extremists in several northwestern states, in a feverish effort to commandeer government institutions and/or to secede (violently if necessary) from the U.S. altogether. Where will that lead if not civil war? In short, at a given moment, state’s rights work for little more than half the citizens in a given state, while depriving the remaining citizens of rights and benefits that they deem important. One might claim that that is democracy, but it is anything but democracy when the legislative deck is stacked by political action committees, or based on the majority’s religious/moral beliefs—be they conservative or liberal. In these cases, a nationwide voter consensus would be much more equitable.
2. More than a few animals eat their young when they exhibit signs of weakness, illness, deformity—and most of all when available resources are insufficient to ensure rapid, healthy growth of the offspring. Are these animals being immoral or unethical? I suppose not, if god made them that way. That is not completely unlike a woman’s choice (right) to abort a fetus if she deems untenable her health, her living situation, the lack of a supportive father, or her sustainable future (or that of her potential child).
“Indeed, mother bears, felines, canids, primates, and many species of rodents—from rats to prairie dogs—have all been seen killing and eating their young. Insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, and birds also have been implicated in killing, and sometimes devouring, the young of their own kind. When mammalian mothers give birth, they must begin nursing their infants—something they can do only if they're healthy and well nourished. But if, for instance, a mother bear in the wild gives birth to unhealthy or deformed cubs, or is unable to find enough to eat, she will typically kill and consume them. "They become a resource, one she can't afford to waste," Barthel says. A mother bear—or lion or wild dog—does the same if she can't nurse her cubs or find food for them. And if one of her cubs dies, she'll most likely eat it immediately, as Khali did. This nourishes her and has the added benefit of removing the carcass. "That way there's nothing rotting in her den which might attract predators," Barthel says.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...h-bear-zoo-infanticide-chimps-bonobos-animals
