Now we know why Republican congressmen prefer sex with male pages. No pregnancy.

Best, Terry

Can somebody explain to me why it is such a bad thing for the issue to be decided at the state level?

To me, it is responsible government for each state to decide its laws rather than letting the Federal Government overstep its boundaries.

Personally, I prefer to have the matter decided at the individual level. The state got no business telling any woman who or what should be inside her body.

Just saying, that's all.

Seems that it's as bad an idea to let a state overstep its boundaries as it is to let the Federal Government overstep.

You comment hits on the little acknowldeged nightmare scenario should the "big" question ever get back up to the Supreme Court.

What if the SCOTUS not only does away with Roe, but finds that for the sake of consistency, no fetus shall be aborted?

Poof. Overnight, all abortions in America are illegal for exactly the reasons you outline above.

It is a highly unlikely scenario, but I'd bet that there are at least four Justices who would be more than willing to go to that extreme if they could find a way.

I, too, would prefer the issue to be decided at the individual level. I was merely responding to the specifics of Ruth's post in which she points out that Roe V. Wade may be in danger.

But if it comes down to Federal or state jurisdiction, I'll choose state almost every time.

Most frustrating to me in the mindless attack on women of the pro-lifers is the ability to change the language in order to make the argument and avoid challenge.

It is much the same as calling torture by waterboarding "dunking."

It is has become so common to talk of "partial birth abortion" that none even pay heed to the plain fact it was invented terminology falsely presented to the public and politicians. Almost none dare challenge the mythology any longer.

Late term abortions are rare and normally only performed in extreme cases such as the impending birth of a brainless monstrosity. Haven't we a sufficient number of brainless politicians that more are needed?

Best, Terry

P.S. No I am not a woman by the way.

In the Federalist Papers Hamilton considered the protection provided by the federal system, suggesting three scenarios, in which states acting to prevent federal usurpation was one, but there was also the worry of states joining together to oppress other states, and the single breakaway usurper. His main worry was conflict between states, and a local tyranny is exactly what he discussed. His view was the federal government was available to protect the citizen from local despots.

He ackowledged the risk of federal tyranny, but felt the averaging factor of national representation diluted local passions and alliances, making the national gov less likely to become despotic.

SD's statute might not be the proper vehicle for such a SCOTUS delaration. However. should a state law declare that an abortion is homocide, and the SCOTUS agrees, buh bye abortion in almost all its forms.

As I said, highly unlikely, but not impossible.

And the Tennessee Williams Mousie attribution is great. I didn't even think about that, even though I am huge fan. One of my friends and regular restaurant customers is a top Williams scholar. I'll have to give him this quiz. Heck, he'd probably even know the source of the source.

State tyranny is perhaps a bit too strong a phrase. No matter what a 'radical' state government might like to pass in terms of laws, the citizens of that state are still protected under the Constitution and Bill of Rights. That in and of itself limits what even the most socially conservative state government can do.

Well, the Southern United States has always wanted to do things their way. Keep in mind that a majority of the population in this region, men and women alike, are Conservative Christians and have no problems whatsoever with banning condoms or vibrators.

Well, in the past, 'doing things their own way' seemed to amount to an institutional tolerance for lynchings and race riots (the old style race riot, which involved white mobs hunting blacks through the streets like animals), as well as Jim Crow laws, and enforcing a culture of poverty that made pellagra an endemic disease among both poor whites and blacks.

While it's humourous to talk about banning vibrators, I think that the other end of the continuum, hanging negroes from trees, is perhaps a lot less charming. It highlights the toxic nature of local corruption and arbitrary moralism.

If a majority of conservative christians in Alabama don't like condoms, then I think that they should be free not to buy them. I don't think that they should be free to impose their arbitrary social standards on others. The potential for misuse is not limited to small battery operated items.

What's more, if Conservative state governments insist on banning things which constitute private property, there might just be a desire for moderates to leave those states.

Or legislating on private morality, like who an adult person can have sex with, what they can look at, who they can associate with, what water founains they can drink from?

Your thesis is that if you don't like the tyranny of the majority, you can always leave.

I think that the whole point of individual rights was to protect from the tyranny of the majority. I'd always thought you were a bit of a libertarian?

Decreased populations would lead to less money. That would provide an incentive for state governments to rescind many of these prohibitions.

In time, socially conservative state governments would come to realize that their strict laws come at a high price. The current group of Republicans in Washington (many of whom are Southern) prove that they understand that sometimes a trade-off is needed when speaking on morals and money.

Now this is kind of interesting, if for no other reason than that it relates directly to a historical example.

In the early 20th century, particularly the 1920's there was a large exodus of blacks out of the South into northern cities.

The phenomenon was partly economic, in that there were better jobs, better wages, better working conditions and more opportunities to be found outside the south.

But it is also clear that racism and the Southern Jim Crow establishment was a major factor. Who wants to live in a state where you can be lynched, or where your neighbor can be lynched as an example to you. Who wants to live in a state where you have no voting rights, where violence is a constant companion, where by every public sign you are a second class citizen.

So, the result was an exodus out of the south, to pretty much anywhere else.

The exodus grew to such proportions that many southerners considered it an economic threat. The mass labour force was leaving, undermining many local economies.

The Southern establishment did not respond to this exodus with liberalization however.

Indeed, the response was simply punitive. Blacks who were trying to leave were simply picked up by police and returned to their community, with warnings or worse. On some occasions, sheriffs actually stopped northbound trains and simply beat and threw every black person off. This was documented, much to my amazement. In other reports and records from the time, we have writings suggesting the danger of blacks leaving the community, and records of the use of force, police or other means to keep blacks in the community.

The result was that for many blacks, leaving the south was a covert activity often not too different from escaping from prison. Indeed, the scale of it was often remarkable.

There are reports of entire villages vanishing overnight under the noses of whites, as the entire community plotted and planned its escape and then stole away while no one was looking. It really is quite astonishing.

Anyway, the point is that the migration of a key economic population did not induce moderation. Blacks were not paid appreciably better, they were not allowed into restaurants, they were not allowed to sit anywhere on the bus, the direct violence increased rather than decreased (although lynchings declined, which suggests that demonstration violence consciously tailed off as it began to have the opposite effect from that intended), nevertheless, the institutional structure of Jim Crow and segregation remained live and virulent until it was forcefully dismantled in the 1960's.

On this basis, I would suggest that history disproves your thesis.

It seems that moral extremists are prepared to bear a lot of social and economic costs in order to enforce their vision of the way things ought to be on other people.

Perhaps this is because moral extremists themselves personally don't usually bear many of those costs. Other people, notably poor people, or liberals or other malcontents do.

But the evidence is that they're always willing to trade a poorer state, if it can be a state which follows their particular judgemental quirks.

Food for thought.

Are you speaking of Amy Klobuchar, Bluebell?

I live out west now in California but am a native Minnesotan. I don't much like Klobuchar simply because I don't trust lawyers, even if they are prosecutors. Mark Kennedy, though a little nerdy, went to St. John's (my alma mater) so I have to support him :)

To be honest I'm less concerned with the possibility of there being another Emmett Till than I am with a population exodus.

In theory the Constitution and Bill of Rights would greatly limit what a state government can do in terms of substantive alienation.

On top of that, Roe V. Wade will not be overturned, despite what the paranoid left may say.

I wouldn't dismiss Roberts and Alito just yet. They haven't done anything since their nominations to raise any eyebrows. Maybe they will, maybe they won't. It's difficult to merely assume they will strike down past progressive precedents.

As for the south, it may be true that the Christian fundamentalists would like to purge their societies of secular heathens, but a smaller population means less money in state coffers. 30 years ago this might not have been such a problem, but with prices rising in nearly every sector, I'm not sure they could afford a population exodus no matter how badly they want it.