Why not leave abortion to the states?
One of the most common arguments made by those who want to downplay the significance of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s leaked draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health is that it would not make abortion illegal. Rather, it would merely return the abortion debate to the legislative sphere, where it belongs. Individual states would pass their own abortion laws, as restrictive or nonrestrictive as their electorate wants them to be.
There is a certain soothing quality to that argument. But issues of individual rights bearing such heavy moral weight cannot be contained within state boundaries. “Let’s leave it up to the states” will quickly become “we expect other states to comply with our laws and will demand federal action to guarantee it” — and one only needs to look at the Fugitive Slave Act to highlight the very real constitutional challenge before us.
