The following is excerpted from the Daily Signal. To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, an unborn baby in Alaska still could be aborted up to the moment of birth. But in Tennessee, the life of an unborn child would be protected from the moment of conception in almost all circumstances.
How could two states in the U.S. treat their unborn children so differently? The moral or philosophical answer is challenging; however, the legal answer is simple: federalism.
Over 230 years ago, the Framers of the Constitution established in the 10th Amendment that “powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
If the Supreme Court reverses its 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade that made abortion on demand legal in all 50 states, the high court will be saying that the Constitution doesn’t provide a “right” to abortion, conservative legal analysts say.
Just as before the court’s Roe ruling, all states again would have the power to determine abortion law within their own borders.
States across the nation vary in how they would treat the unborn if the Supreme Court overturns Roe in the case of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. More than a dozen states have passed something called a trigger law that would go into effect post-Roe. For the purposes of this article, trigger law refers to pro-life legislation that bans all, or most, abortions in a state once Roe is reversed.
Although a few states would allow for abortion up to the moment of birth post-Roe, many pro-abortion states won’t permit abortion once an unborn child is “viable,” meaning the baby could likely survive on its own outside the womb. A pre-born baby usually reaches viability around 24 weeks gestation.
If the Supreme Court does overturn Roe, which the justices appear poised to do according to a leaked draft majority opinion in Dobbs, it will be “the big moment that the pro-life movement has been waiting,” says Autumn Leva, vice president of strategy for Family Policy Alliance.
But the overturning of Roe would mark “not an ending, but a new beginning in the fight for life,” Leva told The Daily Signal during a recent phone interview.
Because regulation of abortion would revert to the states, “citizens’ pro-life vote will matter more than it ever has before,” Leva said, “and lawmakers will be more directly responsible for the lives saved and lost in their states than ever before.”
Look for your state in the alphabetical list below to learn to what extent the unborn would be protected where you live if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade.
To read the full article, CLICK HERE.
