Abortion Debate Finds the Appropriate Stage : States: Competing moral claims can best be resolved by political argument. What better place to decide them than the legislatures.

When the Supreme Court handed down its abortion opinion last summer in Webster vs. Reproductive Health Services, it was greeted by the expected hue and cry. If anyone still doubts the political significance of the case, he or she need look no further than the political turmoil now brewing in their respective state capitals.

Domestic politics has been radically altered by the Webster case for the foreseeable future. The states are rediscovering the gravity of their original role as centers of moral judgment. And that is the real virtue of the Webster decision.

The Florida Legislature has just battled through a special session to consider abortion legislation strongly backed by Gov. Bob Martinez. That the Republican governor lost to the Democrats in the Sunshine State has been made into more than it is. Other states are confronting the same issue, and every indication is that Florida will not be the general rule. Pennsylvania, for example, is about to consider a package of the most restrictive abortion laws yet--and the Democratic governor there, Robert Casey, has vowed to sign that legislation into law as soon as it hits his desk. To make the politics of abortion even more interesting, Casey is being opposed in the gubernatorial race by a Republican running hard on the pro-choice side of the debate.

For 16 years, those who agreed with the court’s landmark Roe vs. Wade ruling have been more than happy to avoid the legislative fracas that they now must face. In Roe, the justices constitutionalized abortion. In Webster, the court stopped far short of overruling Roe but was willing nonetheless to enlarge the states’ prerogatives in dealing with the tumultuous issue.

The fact is, as the experience in Florida shows, the question of abortion finds good and decent people on both sides of the issue. There is no clean and simple line dividing pro-life from pro-choice; neither race, religion, gender nor age explains a person’s stand on abortion. The reason is simple. At its deepest level, the question of abortion is a political question of the first order--that is to say, it is a moral issue.

Such moral questions can be resolved only by political argument, that laborious process of weighing the pros and the cons, the pluses and the minuses of this policy or that. While one might believe deeply that abortion is basically wrong, that judgment might have to be tempered, if not mitigated, by facts. Incest, rape, the life of the mother all must be weighed politically against any absolute claim that abortion is simply wrong. The legislatures of the states are quite capable of addressing the question and reaching some practical compromise between the competing moral claims engendered by abortion. Public policy governing abortion will be all the better for it. But there is an even better reason for shifting the political responsibility for abortion back to the states. That reason is federalism.

To many, the states seem little more than a political inconvenience or a constitutional artifact. The fact is, they are essential parts of the Constitution’s original concern for encouraging decent self-government. By providing a forum for the airing of fundamental controversies, the states serve to draw the citizenry more immediately into the conduct of public affairs. When the justices of the Supreme Court fenced the people out of the abortion question, they did more than merely skew the federal balance between the national government and the states; they undermined popular government.

By forcing the people to confront such issues as abortion directly within their states, federalism can inculcate a healthy regard for the political process. Laws hammered out in a process open to all sides will enjoy a greater support among the people, none of whom will simply have their own way, but all will have a chance to be heard, to make their case, to persuade.

As the other statehouses batten down their hatches preparing for a storm, they should reflect on how politically uplifting their role can be. From the deliberations they will be forced to engage in, state legislators and governors will inevitably serve to flesh out the moral dimension of this troubling issue of abortion. From the heat likely to be generated within the states can also come a good bit of light. While the politics will not be easy, the results will at least be democratically legitimate.