| There's no indication that anything so drastic will be proposed in the 2009 session of the Legislature, but the latest Associated Press survey reveals that almost half of our State Senators believe that abortion should be illegal in Nebraska.
The APs question makes exceptions to save the life of the mother and in cases of rape and incest. 23 of our 49 senators said they agreed with such a ban - 47% of the body. Meanwhile, only 4 senators declared their outright opposition to this proposal. This reveals a startling extremism on this issue in the Legislature as a whole.
Again, there's no indication that a ban of this sort is being proposed in Nebraska. When put before South Dakota voters in the 2008 election, a ban almost identical to this was soundly defeated by 10 points in a popular vote - suggesting that our current legislators may be more concerned with scoring points with powerful anti-abortion special interest groups rather than representing the will of the people.
It's not entirely clear how many State Senators would support an abortion ban without the exceptions named in the APs survey, but at least four senators said abortion should be illegal under any and all circumstances in Nebraska Right To Life's survey of the 2008 candidates.
This "Coat Hanger Caucus" includes Tony Fulton of LD 29, Beau McCoy of LD 39, Ken Schilz of LD 47, and Colby Coash of LD 27. Today's AP report adds Cap Dierks of LD 40 to their number as he declares, "The state should prohibit all abortions, period." And, there are almost certainly others in the 2006 class of senators who would endorse this extremist position.
Of course, even the ban proposed with exceptions for the life of the mother and cases of rape and incest would clearly run foul of long-established doctrine set by the U.S. Supreme Court. One can only assume the unlikely passage of such legislation would primarily represent an effort to challenge and overturn Roe vs. Wade and other related decisions.
In the past, it's also been suggested that a ban could be presented in latent terms - only taking effect upon reversal of the precedents by the Supreme Court that have made abortion legal for the last three and a half decades.
Believe it or not, I'm not an ideologue on this issue in any traditional sense. Personally, I respect the complexities of the abortion debate. But, it's because those issues are so complex and so sweeping that I find the notion absolutely preposterous that we should have different abortion laws from one state to the next.
The right to life is damn well an issue of constitutional concern that can not be interpreted to mean different things in one America. The same must be said of the right to privacy and the right to make decisions over ones own body. These are fundamental questions on which there may always be room for thoughtful disagreement but on which a united people must ultimately share a common approach.
Reasonable people can disagree upon the particulars of abortion's morality. In time, an evolving democracy might even come to a different balancing of the essential but competing liberties defined by this issue. However, there's no place for the Nebraska Legislature in that debate.
Our state senators are welcome to their opinions and their philosophies, but they must resist the urge to exploit this divisive issue for cheap political gain - as so many have done in the past and so many others will no doubt continue to do in the future. 23 State Senators may personally believe whatever they like about abortion, but trying to push those beliefs through public policy is not just a bad idea but would also be bad government. |
