States rights and the abortion debate: but what about MY rights?

May 19, 9:21 PMAnti-Establishment ExaminerJennifer Chou

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Abortion Protesters AP Photo/Eric Y. Exit

I get the conservative argument about states rights and leaving controversial issues up to the states.  But frankly, I'm pretty sick of the whining about states rights and how Roe v. Wade (unconstitutional to ban abortion) and Lawrence (unconstitutional to criminalize sodomy) are the result of activist judges and a departure from the holy Constitution.  

At least from my point of view, adhering to the Constitution is not enough to protect people's rights.  Interpretation of the Constitution has led to plenty of incursions upon individual rights, and not all of it has to do with activist judges.  What's so great about states rights if the majority can band together and vote away a minority's rights?  I don't care about states' rights.  I care about my rights.  

Saying that the state that I happen to live in has a right to tell me what I can or cannot do in my own bedroom, or what I must or must not do with my body because of some lofty Constitutional philosophy is something I cannot wrap my head around.  I understand the concept, but it would be pretentious and facetious of me to say that I actually believed that states rights are more important than my own rights.

I don't care if the Constitution is all we've got, or is a big part of what this country is founded on.  It is not enough.  Search and seizure laws are out of control, and police increasingly have an intrusive presence in private citizens' lives.  There has been no Constitutional challenge to drug laws and the criminalization of doing drugs in the privacy of one's home, yet throwing non-violent offenders in prison for a victimless crime seems like a major violation of natural, and individual rights.  

I agree that the federal government's power needs to be limited.  I could not agree more with this idea; indeed, the Controlled Substances Act, and various other wiretapping and privacy violations are the product of the federal government, not state governments.  Maybe I will concede that activist judges are stepping beyond the bounds of what is appropriate for a judge. However, the answer is not to give that power to the states.  

The states are just mini-federal governments who will heed to the hegemony of their constituency, and act as microcosms of everything we hate about the federal government.

So what should we do?  I don't know.  How about some constitutional amendments telling all governments, federal, state, county, or municipal to get out of people's private lives?  If an action does not directly harm a third party, it cannot be criminalized.  Given how vague many of the constitutional amendments are, I'm sure we could throw something like that in there.  

Forget states rights, and forget the federal government.  Governments do not (or should not) have rights; people do.  Actually, the proposition that governments have rights that are above and beyond that of the people is pretty preposterous to me.  The idea that governments, whether federal, state, or municipal should be given the power to decide whether the people have a right to abortion, marriage, drug use, or sodomy is offensive to me.  The government is an intangible morass of bureaucratic mess and corruption.  Why should they have rights that trump that of an individual?