Dear Copy Book Warriors,
For years, America has struggled with major issues. Among them are social matters like gun control, race, marriage, and abortion. There are other issues also, like crime, border security, domestic spending, and foreign policy. All of these issues are important. But social issues are particularly emotional because they touch the deeply held values of individual Americans. The recent Supreme Court decision on the right of people to carry a concealed firearm to provide for their own self-defense comes to mind. And undoubtedly, the decision to overturn the Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey precedents by the Supreme Court now means the laws governing abortion will be the domain of the states, as was the case 50 years ago and throughout American history.
There will now be a very lively, impassioned debate at the state level as to what laws should be developed to deal with the abortion issue. It is a debate long overdue.
Not infrequently people call for a “national discussion” on this or that issue. Racial issues are often addressed this way. But unfortunately, many of the people who call for these broad national discussions are not serious. Why? Because they really do not want a debate to discuss all the aspects of an issue, particularly if there are elements that expose deep problems or contradictions among groups associated with contentious problems. You cannot have a comprehensive discussion about race in America without talking about the demise of fatherhood and out-of-wedlock births. Much easier, so it appears, to speak of reparations or removing statues than to face the rampant drug abuse, crime, and family dysfunction in America’s urban areas.
Guns and our Constitutional right to keep and bear arms is another issue that deserves a genuine airing of all points of view. But when that discussion starts with undermining gun rights for law-abiding citizens, that debate goes nowhere. One side speaks of rights. The other of violence associated with guns. But that side sees a gun—an inanimate object—as having a will of its own. It doesn’t. And like other issues that are knotty, particularly involving the bad behavior of people who use guns illegally, there is no patience for an honest debate.
Likewise, the issue of gay marriage was particular controversial and concomitantly emotional. Throughout world history, marriage has always been regarded as the union of a man and a woman. Marriage was—and many people still believe—the foundation of the family. But now any debate around this issue seems unnecessarily divisive as gay marriage is now permitted by law and accepted by a large swath of Americans as a fait accompli.
And of course, there is abortion. No issue in America has divided the nation more than this one. On the pro-abortion side of the ledger stands the feminist movement. Abortion is its central article of faith. Feminists claim that overturning Roe and Casey represents an existential threat to a movement that leaned on those precedents as its raison d’être. Similarly, pro-life advocates regard the protection of the unborn as an immutable truth, one deeply rooted in natural law and religious faith. I hold to this view of innocent life. The two sides can find little common ground, particularly since the Supreme Court first involved itself in 1973 creating the right to an abortion that was nowhere expressed in the Constitution. That changed last week and with it, a debate is now raging in America. It is not altogether bad, if the debate can be peaceful and reasoned.
Now it will fall on state legislatures to have the debate that was truncated by a Supreme Court ruling that removed abortion from them. Those state legislatures, close to and responsive to the voters who elected them, must address important questions. Will abortion be legal? At what point will it be illegal? Will there be exceptions? What sanctions will accompany violations of the law? When does legally protected life begin? Is it regarded as innocent life? Should we legalize the taking of innocent life as a right of one human over the other? Indeed, do the unborn have rights?
Clearly there will be no uniform approach to abortion laws in America because states differ on attitudes and views concerning abortion. They have different demographics, different social standards, and different political influences. A one-size-fits all approach to abortion is highly unlikely across all of America.
Consequently, the states will be learning laboratories concerning abortion laws as they are now for other issues. In that context, a body of law will emerge across the several states that represents the will of the people who reside there. So too the fortunes of lawmakers will rise and fall based on the laws they pass. And that’s the way things should work in a Constitutional republic composed of many states.
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