[dredds]

ALL weapons of war are arms and inanimate objects.

> "both ways"

If half the US call abortion murder, and the other half treat it as a female health issue, then it's no longer "United" states. That's my point. It's a divided nation and armed to the teeth. Good luck with that.

[kcplate]

> If half the US call abortion murder, and the other half treat it as a female health issue, then it's no longer "United" states.

At what point in US history was every state in complete and utter unity with every other state on every topic? Seems to me you have given the perfect example of the logic behind why individual states get to democratically determine their own laws.

[krapp]

But individual states have never been in complete and utter unity within themselves on every topic. Abortion has majority support in many states with anti-abortion laws. So the logic doesn't hold.

If the Federal government shouldn't make laws unless every citizen of every state agrees with them, then neither should states. We should then devolve to autonomous, self-governing collectives based entirely on common political ideology. But wait, not every person's set of beliefs is uniform with every others. People may agree on abortion but disagree on other issues. Obviously we can't have people be half-governed.

The only answer is anarchy, then. Each individual acts as a law and government unto themselves.

[kcplate]

> Abortion has majority support in many states with anti-abortion laws

Abortion up to a certain point might have broad support, but polling shows that majority support starts falling off after the first trimester and I believe late to full term abortion availability (which the democrats set as their baseline) only has very minimal support in the general US population. I believe the support for full term abortion is like around 10% in some polling I have seen. Abortion support is definitely not black and white. Lot of gray in there.

https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx

Using your acid test though, assuming a majority support abortion access in a state—but if the state has anti-abortion laws, and candidates continue to run and win as republicans with anti-abortion as a core value of the party, then abortion is simply not a hot button issue among many of those voters who might identify as pro-choice on the issue. I know for me, I’m pro-choice, but short of extreme opinion on abortion on both sides, a candidate’s opinion on the subject will not deter me from voting for them. My neighbors are pro-life, but that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy a cold beer and hot dog together on Independence Day. It’s also damned likely we have voted the same candidates despite our terrible and insurmountable differences. Insurmountable differences, according to some maybe.

[notch656a]

It's worth noting that "law" amongst groups is not incompatible with anarchy. See polycentric law [0] where competing voluntary systems of cooperation and mutual contracts allow one protection of law. Difference being there is no monopoly on governance or violence by the state, but rather it relies on individualized consensus/consent of the governed.

Of course you can choose to reject all pooled systems of cooperation under anarchy, and be an "island" of your own, and that is indeed the most extreme for of anarchism. The issue being no man is an island, so if you're attacked by someone else for aborting you may not have anyone to have your back. Ultimately you need violence to defend against outside attacks, so in practice most will form some sort of alliance of mutual protection and arbitration for violation of certain "law" (the most basic often agreed upon law in anarchist thought is the "non-aggression principle" which itself is subject to interpretation.)

Interestingly, quite a few "anarchists" have been happy to tell me they'd happily execute a threat to "act appropriately" if they learned someone else aborted, as they see it as a violation of consent and non-agression against the fetus -- so even the "autonomy" to abort is pretty controversial in anarchist circles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polycentric_law