OPINION: Ryan McMaken -To Avoid Civil War, Learn to Tolerate Different Laws in Different States

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 Sunday, July 10, 2022 - 05:20
OPINION: Ryan McMaken -To Avoid Civil War, Learn to Tolerate Different Laws in Different States

Most commentary on the Supreme Court's decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization—which overturns Roe v. Wade—has focused on the decision's effect on the legality of abortion in various states. That's an important issue. It may be, however, that the Dobbs decision's effect on political decentralization in the United States is a far bigger deal.

After all, the ruling isn't so much about abortion as it is about the federal government's role in abortion. State governments are free to make abortion 100 percent legal within their own borders. Some states have already done so. The court's ruling limits only the federal government's prerogatives over abortion law, and this has the potential to lead to many other limitations on federal power as well. In this way, Dobbs is a victory for those seeking to limit federal power. 

The decentralization is all to the good, and there's nothing novel about it. Historically, state laws in the US have varied broadly on a variety of topics from alcohol consumption to divorce. This was also true of abortion before Roe v. Wade. 

Read more at Mises Wire. 

 

An economist for the Colorado Division of Housing from 2009 to 2014, Ryan McMaken is a senior editor at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, and author of Commie Cowboys: The Bourgeoisie and the Nation-State in the Western Genre.