August 23, 2007
Radley Balko makes an excellent argument for once again returning abortion policy to the states.
Without Roe, the pro-choice movement would have had to keep taking its case to the state legislatures. States with more permissive attitudes about sex and reproductive rights likely would have passed more permissive abortion laws. Other states would have embraced tighter restrictions. And some states would have kept the existing prohibitions in place. . . .
A federalist approach wouldn’t minimize the stakes for either side. But it would recognize how important the issues are to both sides by allowing as many people as possible to live under an abortion policy that best reflects their own values, and it would transform national politics by moving a particularly poisonous argument to a more appropriate venue. Justice Ginsburg may have embraced Roe, but other supporters of abortion rights have moved in the opposite direction. Pro-choicers who have recently criticized Roe v. Wade include The Washington Post’s Benjamin Wittes and Richard Cohen, Harvard’s Alan Dershowitz, and Slate’s William Saletan. It’s healthy that at least a few voices on both sides of the debate are finally coming to realize the benefits of leaving this issue to the states.