Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, engaging in his usual cheap political posturing (Durbin the Demagogue goes without saying), perhaps stumbled again into displaying ignorance (if we're charitable) or duplicity (Durbin the Duplicitous) in his questioning of Judge Sam Alito in last week's hearings. As pointed out by Mark Davis:
The sad fact is that because of Democrat dishonesty on the issue and the complete failure of Republicans to call them on it, a majority of Americans probably do not have the slightest clue what would happen should Roe vs. Wade be punted.
And, apparently, some U.S. senators with law degrees do not know, either.
Mr. Durbin's quote to Judge Alito: "I'm concerned that many people will leave this hearing with a question as to whether or not you could be the deciding vote that would eliminate the legality of abortion, that would make it illegal in this country."
This is a moment of such profound deviousness or ignorance that the mind staggers.
Either the senator does not know how our system works (despite his Georgetown law school diploma), or he sought to foist an intentional scare on an underinformed America.
The moment Roe is reversed, every state gets to make its own abortion laws.
That's it. No federal ban on abortion. No back alleys. No coat hangers.
This is not like a light switch. Roe made abortion legal across the land, but the absence of Roe does not bring a coast-to-coast ban. It would simply fall to the 50 state legislatures to fashion their own laws, and that is where those favoring and opposing abortion rights would properly have it out to determine how easy or difficult it should be to terminate a life inside the womb from Massachusetts to Texas, from New York to Alabama.
This debate is long overdue, and compelled even more by the profound moral issues raised by stem cell research and human cloning, which legislatures are already having to decide.
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