AGAINST FEDERALISM. Right. Additionally, it's a real luxury to conceive of issues like gay marriage and abortion mainly as fascinating political problems to be solved. It's not merely the moral qualm that if abortion is actually murder, then it's actually murder in both California and Wyoming. It's that if Wyoming outlaws abortion, and a woman in rural Wyoming needs an abortion, she can't get one. Or, if she can, it'll be in a back alley somewhere. The resolution to these issues will have real consequences, and no one on either side of the debate believes that it's more important to come to a soothing political equilibrium than actually stop a genocide of blastocysts/ensure women have control over their reproductive health. It's certainly true that many columnists are primarily interested in the political ramifications and resolutions on offer, but since they're not the ones keeping these fights alive in the first place, it's a little hard to see how solutions that primarily accord with their priorities, but not the priorities of those involved in these issues, actually matter. --Ezra Klein
