But I also believe in Democracy, and believe that judicial activism threatens that. So when I say I accept this compromise, I mean it in the sense where neither side gets what they want by judicial activism. The pro-choicers don’t get unlimited abortion forced down everybody’s throats without the citizens say, and pro-lifers don’t get a ban on abortion forced down everybody’s throats without the citizens say.

This way both positions, the pro-choice position, and the pro-life position, has to be implmeneted the old fashion way, by winning the hearts and minds of the citizens.

HP -
Read above. Also, though, I’m not sure about the rational behind Balko’s statement that:

The best solution is robust federalism. Forgo Roe, and let each state set its own policies on abortion. Those for whom abortion is an important fundamental right can live in areas where abortions are widely available. Those adamantly opposed to any and all abortions can live in jurisdictions that ban the procedure. People like me…”

That sounds pretty similar to the Missouri compromise during the slavery/anti-slavery, ie. “You take this area, I’ll take this area.” At least in that situation, not only did it ultimately fail to resolve the tensions, it failed to address the centrality of the slavery issue.

But the “people like me” argument is also funamentally flawed for abortion. While I agree that this issue shouldn’t be decided, nor funded on a federal level, the issue is much larger than just a “keep to your own” type philosophy.

I believe that a significant reason why there is so much polarity on this issue isn’t because it is being decided on a federal level. Rather it is because - on both sides of the issue - abortion represents a fundamental view of morality that, like Kevin Keith said, “Local communities have no special wisdom about…”

Why, then, is this a compromise that you would be willing to settle for?

But somehow, me thinks you weren’t thinking of the unborn child when you said “personal autonomy” and “bodily integrity violated”, were you?

But this:

highly emotional, high-stakes issues that go to the core of one’s personal values and beliefs . . . are best legislated by the states — or, better, by cities or counties

raises an interesting question: Why states, cities, or counties? To put that another way, why shouldn’t we deal with “highly emotional, high-stakes issues that go to the core of one’s personal values and beliefs” at the highest, not the lowest, administrative level?

The implicit answer seems to be that matters of personal value and emotionally-significant decisions should be handled by those most in touch with the persons whose values and emotions are in question. Local communities have no special wisdom about abortion, and are unlikely to harbor Constitutional law specialists more skilled than federal judges and the Supreme Court (unless your county happens to include Harvard Law School). What they do have is a better understanding of the moral values most characteristic of their populations. For this reason, they may be better able to respond to their citizens’ needs than would federal-level decisionmakers.

But if familiarity with personal values and emotional commitments is a criterion for the locus of decision-making authority on abortion, why, again, should states, cities, or counties be the correct repository? Why not go all the way and push decision-making power down to the lowest possible level of authority? Why not let women make their own decisions, based on their own values and emotional commitments?

State or city leaders may know their citizens better than Congress or the Supreme Court does, but there is no question that those citizens know themselves better than any governmental official. And there is nothing better in having your personal autonomy and your bodily integrity violated by some redneck County Board reactionary than in suffering the same thing at the hands of Supreme Court rightwingers. From the woman’s point of view, neither state nor federal usurpation of her rights to her own body is especially desirable, but from the point of view of the best-placed authority on that woman’s personal values and emotions, the woman herself is obviously the only right choice to hold power over her healthcare decisions.

If we really believed that abortion was an “emotional, high-stakes issues that go[es] to the core of one’s personal values”, we would let the person involved make that decision. Interestingly, this was exactly the reasoning in Roe that prohibited state bans on abortion in the first and second trimesters, but I’d be happy to take your suggestion to go all the way and leave the entire decision up to the person whose values are at stake, if I thought that suggestion was anything but a disingenuous attempt to vacate Roe.