Debate: Should abortion be legal?

[Beet]

The "pro-choice" argument is that a woman's right to control her pregnancy outweighs any right claimed for the embryo or fetus, which pro-choice advocates see as not yet having the full rights of a person. The pro-choice side sees abortion as a private medical decision that must not be made by the government. This was the essential holding in the landmark Supreme Court of the United States 1973 decision, Roe v. Wade, and it is accepted by most in the pro-choice community.

The "pro-life" argument is that an embryo (or, in later stages of development, a fetus) is a human being ”entitled to protection” from the moment of either conception or implantation and therefore has a right to life that must be respected. According to this argument, abortion is homicide. Many take it a step further and say that, unless this homicide is somehow justified, perhaps because it is necessary to save the life of the woman, then abortion is murder.

Edit: Remember, the no position-taking rule is in effect. If you state your view, please give at least some reasoning or justification.

[Beet]

My position is: Roe v. Wade must be overturned, because it was not an accurate interpretation of the Constitution. The correct meaning of the Constitution must be affirmed. Abortion simply is not a constitutional right. Neither is the "right to control one's own body," the "right to privacy" (in the substantive sense), or "reproductive autonomy." The issue must be returned to the political control of the states.
If it is returned to the states, as it should be, then I would vote for an amendment to my state's constitution to say that our state government is powerless to ban abortion; that it is a "right" protected by our state constitution. Nevada has already adopted the same sort of thing. I am ready, willing, and able to leave women's bodies alone because so many of them insist on that very thing. I am uncomfortable with the pro-life point of view that "abortion is murder," but that so few of the people saying so are willing to punish a woman who asks to get an abortion. Remember the stink that was raised last year when Trump started off saying something to that effect - he believed women who ask to get an abortion and then one is performed should be punished - and then he backed away from that position. Why? It makes perfect sense that if "abortion is murder," then an abortion doctor is like a hired hit-man. The primary instigator of the crime, and the one who deserves the most punishment, is the one who asked that the crime be performed.

I agree that Roe is an utterly absurd decision from a constitutional standpoint and, if I were in the SCOTUS at the time, I would have voted against it.

That said, overturning it now would mean triggering draconian anti-abortion legislation in at least half the States, with horrifying consequences for women all over the country. The political climate on abortion has degraded so much from the 1970s that the stakes keep getting higher. Of course, Roe is itself largely responsible for this degradation, and that's the great tragedy of the American pro-choice movement.

And then there will be backlash against those draconian laws, and then before you know it legislators and/or voters start discussing how to deal with the issue of abortion by crafting compromise legislation. Compromising on the issue of abortion is the direction the Supreme Court has been headed in anyway, beginning with Planned Parenthood v. Casey (which is still no reason to respect the legality of what the Court did in Casey any better than what it did in Roe).

I think it's more likely that it will behave similarly to other hot-button local issues, like gun rights or right to work laws. Legislators of the majority party will simply ram through their preference, and the opposition will vigorously attempt to campaign on the issue. If they are successful, they will try to ram through an alternative, and so on. As a result, legislators will no longer be able to campaign on local issues. You'll have a ton of "I would vote for X because she's the best candidate, but we disagree on abortion so I have to vote Y" at the local and Congressional levels.