New Stanek poll: Do you think abortion is a state issue or federal issue?
I have a new poll question up:
Texas Gov. and GOP pro-life presidential candidate Rick Perry said this week he thought the 10th Amendment mandated that the legality of abortion be decided at the state level. Do you agree, or do you think it should be decided in the federal courts and/or with a constitutional amendment?
Vote on the lower right side of the home page.
Interesting results on last week’s poll, and a bit unexpected. In retrospect I should have asked whether respondants answering a certain way were pro-life or pro-choice. Maybe another time…
Click on the map to enlarge to find your own brightly colored flag…
As always, make comments to either the previous or current poll here, not on the Vizu website.
Jul.30, 2011 12:52 pm |
Polls |
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Mixed feelings. Laws against killing people who are already born are mainly at the state level, so that’s probably where this would normally belong. Of course, that would likely leave us in the pre-Roe v Wade scenario, with abortion legal in some states and legal in others. We would then need to work to make it illegal in all states. It could happen that it would be addressed like slavery was, by amending the federal Constitution, but I think it would be better to work it at the state level first.
I agree with state level. The majority of states are far more pro-life than the fed.gov. and becoming increasingly so. The fed.gov. (especially under this prez.) is getting in the way of the lifeward trek of the states by suing and threatening every time a state makes a pro-life decision. Sates seem more stable than the gov. too. Every party change the fed.gov. kicks the Mexico City policy football one way or the other and fund/defund ESCR, it’s an annoying seesaw. States don’t seem to flip flop that much.
Leave it up to the states! We can then take this fight to the smaller scale state skirmishes, and I think have elective abortion back to RARE or not at all as it should be much faster!
State level. Our federal government should be involved in a LOT less than it is. We need 50 experiments in democracy, where if some get tyrannical you can vote with your feet. Having all our eggs in one basket is a risk the founders never would have accepted.
Starve the beast, shrink the fed to its minimal possible enumerated constitutional duties, and let the policy battles erupt across a richly diverse patchwork quilt of states where those who create policy affecting their citizens are themselves local citizens — not distant regulators working out of back offices in Washington, contriving and universally applying their half-baked tyrannies.
It depends on how badly you want to stop abortion. Reality is your not going to stop all of it, there was abortion prior to Roe vs Wade & would be if overturned. On a federal level, duh wake up people-to pass a Constitutional Amendment requires ratification by 2/3 of the states, that could take years if ever-how many babies murdered in that time? Ask yourself that. On a state level MUCH MUCH easier to pass. Will all states outlaw NO they won’t. However, it will require more thought to have an abortion if you have to go from Texas to New York to have it for example. Then once you get passed in say Texas, you start working on NY laws to have specific guideline requirements. You have to be smart about it. Or you can be stupid & go for all or nothing.
State. Just because the federal government has repeatedly overstepped itself in various areas of law doesn’t mean we should encourage it to continue.
Murder is a crime that is dealt with by state level jurisdictions generally. So, it seems appropriate for states to handle abortion. Basically, abortion is murder. So, yeah, leave it to the states. Roe v. Wade interfered with the states’ ability to prosecute and punish the crime.
We don’t need to make every crime a federal offense. It is just too unwieldy. States are already set up to prosecute crimes within their jurisdictions. Obviously, pro aborts don’t want it handled at the state level because then they would have to bribe, I mean contribute to the campaigns of 50 times as many politicians. That would be expensive.
This question depends entirely on whether you lean pro-life or pro-choice. If you’re pro-life, state level. If you’re pro-choice, Federal level ;)
If it took the Supreme Court to Pass RoevWAde across the United States, it was a Federal decision. That decision proved it is a nationwide/federal issue that must be a Federal issue for all!
Yes
I don’t think the answers to the last poll were unexpected at all. Pro-lifers aren’t all pro-life because of religions reasons – and, as far as I can tell, most opposition to contraception as a whole (as opposed to opposition to one method because of the effects) is religiously based. Jill, I think your typing fingers are less on the pro-life pulse as a whole and more on the religious pro-life pulse. Society is getting more secularized and more pro-life at the same time. I thought the poll results were actually pretty predictable.
“You shall not murder.” (Ex 20:13, Deut 5:17, Ps 94:6, Ps 144:14, Prov 28:17, Jer 7:9, Hos 6:9, Matt 15:19, Mark 7:21, Mark 15:7 Luke 23:19, Luke 23:25, Rom 1:29, 1Tim 1:9, James 4:2.)
Elective abortion is homicide and in almost every instance it is murder.
The first responsibilty of any government is the protection of human life.
Government does not ‘create’ life nor does it grant the right to life.
Good government can only acknowledge the ‘right to life’. Government has been manipulated to redefine or eliminate a category of humans from the protection of the law.
It is a self evident truth that all humans are created equally and they are endowed by their CREATOR with the ‘right to life’ [the gift of GOD, not government], the right to liberty [It is for liberty that CHRIST has set us free.] and the pursuit of happiness/the right to the fruit of our labors [A workman is worthy of his wage. “Thou shall NOT steal.” (Ex 20:15, Lev 19:11, Deut 5:19. Matt 19:18, Rom 2:21, Rom 13:9.)]
Government is ordained by GOD, but it is administrated by humans.
Humans are stupid, but GOD can fix stupid.
Listen for the ‘pop’.
Abortion is murder. . .so is murder a state or federal issue? There’s your answer.
As for the last poll, for the record: I’m pro-life, and pro-contraception.
No, not in the courts. That would just perpetuate the see-saw battle we are currently engaged in with the nomination of Supreme Court Justices.
A Constitutional Amendment is both national and state-level, as it requires Congressional approval to bring the measure to the states, where it would require 2/3 of states to ratify it. That’s a pretty high bar to clear, and one that is much more decisive, much more a manifestation of the will of the people than relying on the votes of five justices.
First of all, abortion has been legalized by the Supreme Court – as has interracial marriage. So if a state decides to criminalize both abortion and interracial marriage, I suspect that there will be legal challenges. Do those of you who support abortion legality decided on the state level also support things like child labor, racial policies in schools, public accomodations, and miscegenation decided on the state level as all these things have been addressed in national law and SCOTUS decisions. I suspect Roe will need to be reversed before this can go to the states and good luck with that. Both Alito and Roberts said it was “stare decisis” at their confirmation hearings. Unlike Ken, they don’t make decisions based on the bible.
But if it goes to the states, New England, New York and the West Coast will be abortion meccas. In my area we could set up abortion tourism as an industry. Come in for an abortion and get a free pass to our wonderful Providence theater and discounts for hotels along our southern beaches. Unlike the rest of the country, my area is becoming more secular.
And those states who criminalize abortion, many of which have high teen pregnancy and poor maternal health indices not to mention a struggling economy, will just have lots more babies. It will be great for those central states that need to boost their population or at least keep up with those “illegals.” (I’m being snarky). And if folks can’t provide for them, maybe the state can set up nice orphanages and workhouses. Oh, right, can’t have a safety net cuz it costs money and creats indolence. Those moms and babies will look so cute begging on the street.
But getting back to the topic. As long as Roe exists, there also exists a legal basis for abortion which provides the basis for all the lawsuits being filed against state attempts to make abortion unavailable and inaccessible.
Could it not be both?
The Federal level is the most challenging, but should be the ultimate goal of all pro-lifers to gain the acknowledgment and acceptance of the right to life for the unborn, it is the first unalienable rights listed in our constitution.
Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, in that order, because no one’s liberty or pursuit of happiness comes before another’s life.
And our fight should be on the state level doing everything we can to protect the innocent, the more states that stand together for the unborn the closer we come to a nation wide ban on abortion.
We need to stand and fight for the rights of the unborn at every front, local, state and federal.
This question is causing some angst right now in reading a few op-eds. If it is a state issue, then you’ve got to respect Iowa, New York, and any other state that has passed gay marriage because they settled it at the state level. If you say federal level, now you’re all about big government, and any abortion legislation gets real tough.
Good point Ex-GOP. And then there are states like Texas. How many death warrants has Perry signed now? More than the war criminal Bush did from what I’ve read.
the supreme court also once upheld slavery (Dred Scott case)! Nice try, CC.
“the supreme court also once upheld slavery (Dred Scott case)! Nice try, CC.”
At present, the SCOTUS does not appear to want to strike down abortion. And the Supreme Court did not rule slavey unconsitutional. It was done via a constitutional amendment. There is no way that an abortion banning amendment will make it through the process.
Hey – how bout Nebraska’s draconian new abortion law being on hold! Score one, at least for the moment, for women.
Not a huge deal, but people – it takes 3/4 of the states to ratify an Amendment, not 2/3.
CC: Hey – how bout Nebraska’s draconian new abortion law being on hold! Score one, at least for the moment, for women.
If some states wanted to re-institute slavery, they’d face opposition, too.
Reality: “How many death warrants has Perry signed now?”
Not even one.
It’s not an either/or. It’s both. The early prolife movement sought a human life amendment, but it was clear that it wasn’t going to work yet after several attempts. Right now, states are where you’ll see the most action. When enough or all states manage to outlaw abortion, and the public is supportive enough, then you finally add a human life amendment to the constitution. Meanwhile, federal, state, county, village, podunk crossroads; you work everywhere. States though are where most resources should go at this time in my opinion.
“Marriage” when put on the ballot for the people to decide has been upheld as between one man and one woman (I think it has been defined this way in over 30 states), but whenever the courts decide or you have radical leftist state legislatures decide, like in California, they say “screw you” (pun intended) to the people.
Prolifer -
My guess though is that you don’t believe that all issues should only go to the majority opinion, correct?
If by “all issues” you mean abortion (deciding who should live or die before birth) I feel nauseous that it is up to votes, courts or to the legislatures to decide this. I believe the “right to life” is constitutionally fundamental. I actually think most of the time if left up to the people to decide they probably will get it right.
Marriage has many fundamental properties but is not a fundamental “civil right”, deciding who someone wants to inherit their property, make their end-of-life decisions, visit them in the hospital, be the beneficiary of their life insurance, etc. has been available to people of any lifestyle to decide legally for years. I worked in healthcare for years, NEVER saw same-sex couples denied any access to each other or denied who had their medical power of attorney, we never had time to police who visited any patient, we were too darn busy to worry about it. The redefination of “marriage” is not about equality, fairness and tolerance, it is about “transforming America” and especially dismantling ” fundamentalist religion” who is considered their biggest threat. I do not hate or fear same-sex individuals, I pray for their healing. The use of the terms “ignorant”, haters” and ”bigots” are labels that were carefully crafted as a campaign to discount the biggest portion of those who will not “bow down” by embracing and celebrating “The Homosexual Agenda” (book by Alan Sears is a carefully documented expose of the homosexual campaign).
Prolifer -
Two comments – First off, if I had my way, I’d just get rid of mariage as a legal definition. Define whoever for decisions, and leave marriage to churches. I’d rather have my church involved.
Secondly – I thought that states didn’t want to tinker with things like hospital visitations either, but that seems to be going away – my stupid governor Scott Walker thinks it is a “special” right and wants to get rid of it – http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/121956273.html
Ex-GOP: Looks as if the problem isn’t Walker, it’s y’all’s constitution.