Quote from: o_e_l_e_o on Today at 05:40:54 PM

The way I see it, abolishing Roe would insert many local and state governments in to what should be an issue between doctor and patient and have no government involvement whatsoever.

Taking the localism issue in isolation: The less power any particular government has, the less total harm any one of them can do, and the less incentive there is for outside forces to corrupt the governments. But because we're talking about a prohibition on any government creating a bad law, rather than the creation of some federal law/program, I do find the argument against localism somewhat appealing here. Would I support restricting the 1st or 2nd amendments (which I unreservedly support) to only federal laws rather than federal+local laws? I think that I would in fact support limiting the scope of the 1st or 2nd amendments in this way, as it would reduce the scope of the federal government's power, though when I consider this isolated, extreme example, it makes me a lot less comfortable.

On the abortion issue in particular, I'm even more happy with localism because there is never going to be anything approaching a nationwide consensus on the abortion issue, so localism here gives people an opportunity to vote with their feet.

Your "between doctor and patient" point is why I said in my previous post that pro-abortion people are bad at messaging. That comes across as being utterly dismissive toward an act that anti-abortion people honestly see as downright murder. You are never in a million years going to convince anyone with that sort of messaging. If you want to be more effective at convincing people, you should drop the "just a medical choice like any other" language and instead:
- Give arguments for why abortion is not murder even in the 2nd trimester (eg. data on brain development).
- Point out that if anti-abortion people actually believe abortion is murder, then it makes no sense to allow abortions in case of rape or incest, which are overwhelmingly seen in polling as acceptable situations for abortions.
- Give stories of people whose lives were in some way saved from tragedy because they could have an abortion.
- Give stories of people who died or whose lives were ruined because they were prevented from having an abortion.