Mark (Levin): Huckabee’s statement makes perfect sense to me.
John Hawkins: Switching gears again, do you think we should overturn Roe v. Wade?
Mike Huckabee: It would please me because I think Roe v. Wade is based on a real stretch of Constitutional application — that somehow there is a greater privacy issue in the abortion concern — than there is a human life issue — and that the federal government should be making that decision as opposed to states making that decision.
So, I’ve never felt that it was a legitimate manner in which to address this and, first of all, it should be left to the states, the 10th Amendment, but secondly, to somehow believe that the taking of an innocent, unborn human life is about privacy and not about that unborn life is ludicrous.
He’s saying that Roe wrongly created a broad federal treatment of abortion, and that it also created the wrong treatment of abortion, because it takes an obvious, fundamental human right (life) and subordinates it to a privacy concern.
As for a “constitutional amendment to return abortion to the states,” I think the idea would betray a lack of clear thinking. (A Thompson advisor tells me, though, that this is not his position — he has simply supported the overturn of Roe.) There already exists such an amendment — the Tenth Amendment — but the Roe Court just didn’t care. Roe’s reversal would have the same effect as a “go-back-to-the-states” amendment, and it appears much more attainable — it will likely happen if any of the Republicans (perhaps even Giuliani) wins next November.
The HLA, by contrast, is both worthwhile and unattainable for now — we’d need 30 more pro-life Senators, which will surely require a cultural and political paradigm shift if there ever was one. We can at least start by reversing Roe and bringing the legal situation to the status quo ante – making it a state issue. I may be missing something else Huck said, but that all seems fairly consistent.