In today’s edition of Townhall, Phil Harris has a column that attempts to take Fred Thompson to task for his stance on abortion being a state’s rights issue. Mr. Harris feels that Thompson should reevaluate his position, vis-a-vis abortion and come to the conclusion that the federal government should take an anti-abortion stand. Some of the posts that I read were in agreement with Mr. Harris, and some decided that they would have to modify their views in light of Mr. Harris’s arguments.

As you can probably guess, I am not one of those people. On this issue, I stand firmly in the camp of Fred Thompson. Abortion rights must equal state’s rights, in my opinion.

Let’s be clear here, I am not making a case for abortion on demand. I am now, and have always been against abortion. I believe that it is the taking of human life and should be discouraged, and if the various states deem it necessary, it should be prohibited. But the argument here is whether or not the states should have the right to legislate on the issue, or if it should fall to the federal government to legislate it. I do not see where the federal government has any right to legislate anything in this area.

Amendment X of the United States Constitution reads as follows: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” It is as simple as it seems: If the Constitution does not give a power to the federal government, then that power is reserved for the states; the federal government should have no voice in the matter. And until the SCOTUS injected itself into the abortion issue in 1973, the federal government had no interest in the issue of abortion…and it still should not have any interest in the issue. This was an area that had been handled by the various states in the way best deemed by the voters and legislatures of those states, as it should have been according to the concept of federalism.

But Mr. Harris feels that federalism should be suspended here and that Fred Thompson has it all wrong to insist that the federal government stay out of the issue. The prevailing argument from Mr. Harris seems to be that since this is a national issue, and a moral issue at that, then the federal government should be interested in it. I say that the only reason that this was ever a national issue is because the federal government, via the judiciary, hijacked it from the states so that the SCOTUS could impose its social policy preferences on the nation. The SCOTUS had no legal right to intervene in the Roe case, and its activism opened a national Pandora’s Box on an issue that was best handled by the individual states. The Roe ruling brought big government deeper into our private affairs and allowed for even more government intrusion into our personal lives. I though that was something that conservatives were against…or was I mistaken?

The thing is, federalism is not something that we conservatives can put on and take off as it suits our purposes. One of the major beliefs of the conservative movement is that we need less government intrusion into our lives, not more. A strong belief in federalism is one of the things that allow us to remain free from governmental control, it is what allows us to have a say in shaping the laws that we live by, and I do not want to see that eroded. But if we decide that allowing the federal government to decide this matter is okay, then we are in no position to oppose other encroachments on us by the feds, because we have already given them authority to do so.

I understand that abortion is an emotional issue for most, and that the feelings about the issue are strongly held. I understand that many would love to see some sort of law handed down to establish national rules or standards when it comes to abortion, as well. But I see that willing acceptance of increased federal intrusion into the realms that the Constitution set aside as being “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” as an invitation to tyranny. If we allow the federal government to disregard the Constitution and its restraints on federal power on this issue, then what will the next issue be that we turn over to Washington. We have had so many of our powers taken by the federal government, why would we be willing to give away any more?

I applaud Fred Thompson in his stand on this issue, because it is the right stand to take. It may not be universally popular, and it may not be politically expedient, but it is in keeping with the words of the Constitution and that is what is important. I would rather support someone who does the right thing, even if it’s not the popular thing, than to see someone disregard the Constitution and its clear wording to score easy political points.

On this issue, Fred Thompson is right and Phil Harris is wrong.