American dissolution

When God made a covenant with Noah in Genesis 9, He told him that anyone who sheds the blood of another innocent person must die, precisely because that person has devalued a life made in the image of God. Society must be vigilant in valuing human life. Is it a coincidence that as various states have rejected the death penalty for murderers, the same states have embraced the death penalty for the innocent unborn?

But the United States appears to be breaking apart, at least in moral terms, over the issue of abortion. The New York Times has taken note of this phenomenon, with states reacting to each other in equal and opposite directions on hot-button issues.

For example, as Idaho legislators prepared protections for the unborn, lawmakers next door in Oregon approved funding to cover abortions for people traveling in from out of state. The tit-for-tat approach between the states is akin to the free and slave state dynamics before the Civil War, with states no longer willing to coexist in a federal, respectful arrangement over differences. Half the states now have laws that allow lawful gun owners to carry their guns in public without further state permission. Others are responding with increasingly tighter gun laws. But the most divisive of all dividing lines is abortion.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon issue its decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case out of Mississippi. The state asked the court not just to uphold protections for the unborn after 15 weeks of gestation, but also to end the force of Roe v. Wade and Casey v. Planned Parenthood altogether. The consensus opinion is that the court will indeed curtail abortion rights and, directly or indirectly, reverse Roe.

Due to years of willful media misinformation, much of the public believes ending Roe v. Wade means banning abortion. But if Roe is reversed, abortion merely becomes an issue for each state to decide. And progressive states are rapidly rushing to enshrine abortion on demand into their laws.

California, Colorado, and Maryland have taken up extreme abortion measures that would allow abortion on demand up until birth and, as written in some of the proposals, even after delivery. These states would join the District of Columbia, New Jersey, Oregon, and Vermont, all of which have laws allowing abortion until birth. Twelve states have laws allowing abortion until viability. Some of those, like California and New York, are already moving farther left as they anticipate a Roe reversal.

Twelve states have laws protecting the unborn that were passed since Roe and would go into effect if Roe is reversed, and another five still have their pre-Roe protections for unborn babies on the books. Abortion and the sanctity of life will be a real dividing point in the future. If Roe goes away, some states will have to fight progressive judges at the state level. Those fights are coming.

Divisions will make unity among the 50 states more difficult as the fight moves from the judiciary to the democratic process. In the past few years, progressive states have passed laws or orders that prohibit state employees from going to states with policies with which they disagree.

In 2017, California restricted public funding for state employee travel to eight states over transgender issues. California state workers cannot spend state funds to visit Alabama, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, and Texas. Progressives have also enlisted corporations to boycott states over social matters. When Georgia passed its fetal heartbeat law, Hollywood film studios threatened to stop making movies in the state if the law made it through the court system. It would have wreaked economic havoc in Georgia.

Progressive states that have devalued life and emboldened the abortion culture are the bullies here. Conservative states are not banning travel to progressive states. Conservative states and activists are not harassing the Fortune 500 to avoid doing business in liberal states. Having devalued the lives of the innocent, the progressive states see no value in their conservative counterparts who disagree with them on the issue of life. The Founders designed a country where they thought federalism could allow a diversity of state views under a common framework for a limited national government.

Can a union of 50 states survive this level of stress over a moral question so basic? Time will tell, but our national history reminds us that we can never take unity for granted.