[Mercer] That the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) finally delivered a decision returning and restoring power to the states on this one issue, abortion, is as it should be. If her state outlaws abortion; a woman can still board a Greyhound bus to get the procedure elsewhere.
The ethical elegance of the libertarian argument was voiced before in this space:
However much one disdains abortion, one can’t get away from the matter of self-ownership. You simply have no right to take custody of an adult’s body. An adult woman, however loathsome, either owns herself and everything inside her or doesn’t. You can’t "own" yourself with the exception of your uterus or in conjunction with other busybodies.
Thus, theoretically, "Women have the right to screw and scrape out their insides to their heart’s content." With a proviso: Americans who oppose abortion must be similarly respected in their rights of self-ownership. Taxpayers who oppose the procedure ought to have an equal right to dispense of what is theirs—their property—in accordance with the dictates of their conscience.
Trojans, Trivora or termination: An American woman has the right to purchase contraception, abortifacients and abortions, provided ... she pays for them. For like herself, America is packed with many other sovereign individuals, some of whom do not approve of these products and procedures.
So, while adult women ought to be able to terminate their pregnancies—always to the exclusion of late-term infanticide—what America’s manifestly silly sex does not have the right to do is to rope conscientious objectors into supplying them with or paying for their reproductive choices. The rights of self-ownership and freedom of conscience ought to apply on both sides of the abortion debate.
Late-term abortion, generally, must always be outlawed. (I realize, dear reader, that I owe you argument, not assertion, which, alas, is what I’ve provided.) One could argue that, Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the deciding case brought before the SCOTUS, did concern late-term abortion, with the state of Mississippi banning abortion after 15 weeks, pursuant to which, "The Jackson clinic and one of its doctors sued Mississippi officials in federal court, saying the state’s law was unconstitutional. A federal district court and the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the clinic, blocking Mississippi’s law. But the state appealed to the Supreme Court, which put the case on its docket."
The result has been real federalism—on this one vexing matter—although, individual taxpayers who conscientiously object to abortion will still be on the hook for these services should their state authorize them. Federalism does not respect individual choice. And, federalism has hardly been revived. Powers have never been more concentrated in the Federal Frankenstein, which has never been more intractable and tyrannical.
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