> To bypass the deadlocked congress, obama used executive orders in new and expansive ways. That ratcheted things up.

While I agree - this has been an issue long before Obama.

Any reasonable country should be able to decide on the legality of abortion through the normal political process - the public deliberates, they elect representatives, the representatives hammer out the fine print and pass legislation.

But in the American system, the legality of abortion is decided at random, based on the deaths of a handful of lawyers born in the 1930s. If that person dies between ages 68-75, 84-87 or 91-95 abortion is illegal, if they die aged 76-83, or 88-91 it's legal.

Why doesn't America deal with political questions using their political process?

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SllX 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> Why doesn't America deal with political questions using their political process?

Since 2022 we do. But it’s through the political process of the States. This has made a lot of people very angry because a bunch of States have got it all wrong, and the exact way they got it wrong depends on your point of view on the subject, but no matter which side of the debate you’re on, some on your side most assuredly want to preempt all the States that got it all wrong with Federal law.

That Congress hasn’t come to a political consensus is the Federal political consensus.

	▲	bigstrat2003 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> Since 2022 we do. But it’s through the political process of the States. Which is exactly as it should be. There's nothing in the Constitution which gives the federal government power to act on this issue, therefore it should be decided on a state by state basis. Government works best when it is done based on the values and needs of the local population, not one solution for an entire heterogeneous nation.

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jjmarr 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because that requires compromise and Americans are raging absolutists that need immediate results.

In 1791, abolitionists tried to end slavery in the British Empire but couldn't get it passed by the House of Commons. Henry Dundas changed the bill so it would be phased-in. Existing slaves wouldn't be emancipated but their children would be. That bill did pass. Slavery naturally ended over the following decades until the much smaller slave population was bought by the government and freed in 1833.

In the USA, nobody budged until a Civil War happened and then the slaves were freed by force in the 1850s without monetary compensation. But that time, emancipation happened immediately after they got full power, there was no need to give money to racists, and no moral compromises were required.

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kelnos 2 hours ago | parent [-]

> But that time, emancipation happened immediately after they got full power, there was no need to give money to racists, and no moral compromises were required.

I really hope you were being sarcastic here... Emancipating the slaves during/after the Civil War was not an orderly, immediate process. And even once all slaves were freed, they continued to live second-class lives due to the laws of the time.

	▲	jjmarr an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Yes, it's sarcasm. I'm contrasting how Britain made their legal process gradual enough to match reality with the USA's demand that legal processes create reality. For reference, fully elective abortion legally doesn't exist in most of the UK. It's just that a fetus being dangerous to the mental health of the mother has progressively been interpreted more and more broadly... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_United_Kingdom

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SoftTalker 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

In the American system as originally founded, most of these things were intended to be decided by the states.

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edgyquant 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It’s more like Americans did decide, that it was illegal and judges decided they could use legal tricks to make it legal (which in turn meant as soon as they didn’t have the majority the opposite could occur.)