This thought came to me as I was driving somewhere. I may be wrong.
Those who support abortion rights should be delighted by the SCOTUS decision to hand abortion decisions over to the states. The SCOTUS decision has effectively rendered an unborn fetus parasite person collection-of-cells nothing.
Not exactly "nothing" in reality but nothing as far as the federal government (FG) goes. If the FG does not regulate it or is barred from regulating it, then it does not exist.
The SCOTUS decision says that whatever may be growing in a woman's womb is not a person. Whatever is growing is now, under federal definition, nothing.
This runs to the Interstate Commerce Clause of the Constitution. Follow the link and come back once you understand the ICC.
In order for the federal government to have a say in anything, that decision has to be rooted in the Constitution. Over the decades, the ICC has been warped out of all logic as it is used to say Congress has powers well beyond the original scope of the Constitution and the Amendments. That is a blog for another day.
MOVE FROM ONE STATE
People are free to move from one state to another. Generally. People on parole or probation are special cases.
When some "thing" crosses a state line, the feds can get involved. They do get involved.
A pregnant woman crosses a state line, state A to B. The feds cannot do anything about this, see the Right to Travel in the Constitution (and disregard what sovereign citidiots tell you about driver's licenses, insurance and tags).
The woman has an abortion in state B. She returns to state A no longer pregnant.
2 REQUIREMENTS
The feds cannot do anything about this. If the feds could do something about that, it requires one of 2 things:
1) The feds recognize what the woman was carrying in her womb was a human being. Abortion is then murder.
2) The feds recognize that what the woman was carrying was a thing. As she crossed a state line and left said
unborn fetus parasite person collection-of-cells in State B, this is interstate commerce and subject to federal regulation. The ICC says if something (not humans) can cross a state line, it is subject to federal regulation.
Important note here: The
unborn fetus parasite person collection-of-cells has the potential to be left in State B. That is enough for ICC regulation, IF those cells are a thing. Leaving that
unborn fetus parasite person collection-of-cells in another state is no different than leaving behind some hair, the skin cells we constantly shed, a gall bladder after surgery, etc.
SCOTUS effectively said what is/was in the womb is not subject to federal regulation, ergo it is a nothing.
Really. Pollution can cross a state line (and does), hence the volumes of federal environmental regulations. Lots of other stuff crosses state lines and is subject to the feds.
But not whatever is in a woman's womb. It is outside the purview of federal regulation, despite crossing state lines one way and not coming back on the return trip.
