THE SWEET SMELL OF FEDERALISM. It seems that the "Senate passed legislation Tuesday that would make it a federal crime to help an under-age girl escape parental notification laws by crossing state lines to obtain an abortion."
This is the sort of thing we can look forward to if Roe and Casey are overturned or chipped away. The abortion issue won't be "returned to the states" under any circumstances. It simply isn't the sort of issue that people are going to be inclined to take a "live and let live" attitude toward -- we're not talking about speed limits or zoning rules or what you have. Rather, people are disagreeing about a very abstract question of universal morality, and, naturally enough, people on both sides are going to try and get as close to universal rules as they possibly can. And, frankly, rightly so -- it'd be bizarre to decide that a fetus is a legal person in Oklahoma but not in Oregon.
--Matthew Yglesias
