The recent Supreme Court decision restricting [late-term] abortions was doubly disastrous, not just for the reasons cited elsewhere, but also because it was done without an associated victory for state’s rights. As a federal regulation, these new restrictions apply not just to South Dakota and Alabama, but to New York, Vermont and Hawaii, as well. So now, women in need must travel not just from North Carolina to West Virginia or Maryland, but to Canada (where they now need passports) or to Cuba (which is illegal in most cases).
I was almost hoping that the South Dakota ban would stand, because then maybe all the antichoice zealots would move to that freezing wasteland and the rest of America would be rid of them—while only one abortion clinic would have [had] to move 14 miles to the Minnesota border. But a federal ban, a nationwide ban, is a far more crushing blow, forcing women [to go] thousands of miles and through all the bureaucratic hurdles of international travel. And even the choice leadership doesn’t see the difference between 14 miles and 2,000.
This can’t stand. How can intelligent environmentalists waste their time on inane zoning in the face of such a jet-fuel-intensive assault?
— Alan Ditmore
Leicester
