The Civil War/slavery analogy seems like another instance where Huckabee isn't experienced and/or disciplined enough to play to the base without getting himself into trouble by being too over the top, e.g. wanting to amend the Constitution to reflect God's laws instead of just wanting to amend it to ban gay marriage. We saw in one of the Bush-Kerry debates that invocations of slavery are a dog-whistle option for Republican presidents or candidates: Bush didn't want to say outright that he would only appoint anti-Roe justices to the Supreme Court, so he invoked Dred Scott and left everyone (except for the base voters he was targeting) scratching their heads. He was playing to the hard-core anti-choice narrative where they see themselves as the modern day equivalent of 19th century abolitionists--and this is obviously what Huckabee is doing as well, except he's not slick enough to disguise the analogy without making it explicit.

I think Scotty has it wrong. Thompson's position is not a matter of regional morality, it's a matter of sovereignty.

If we moralized across agreed upon political boundries, we would have already been in Darfur, and already been up in Saudi Arabia's tailpipe for their treatment of women.

No, Fred is saying the states would have the right to this decision because of their power, not because he thinks it's 'regionally moral'.

http://www.ontheissues.org/2008/Fred_Thompson_Abortion.htm

Seems to indicate that Fred Thompson doesn't believe that 'abortion should be left to the states' - he just feels that if you abolish Roe v Wade then the states will have greater ability to impose greater restrictions:

"Reverse Roe & return abortion to states, to allow SOME bans

Q: You believe that abortion is the taking of life; so why leave it up to the states where, as you well know, before Roe vs. Wade, some states allowed abortion on demand?

A: What the situation is now is as follows. Because of Roe vs. Wade, all states are restricted from passing rules that they otherwise would maybe like to pass with regard to this area. If you abolish Roe vs. Wade, you're going to allow every state to pass reasonable rules that they might see fit to pass. There hasn't been a serious effort to put forth a constitutional amendment because people knew that it wouldn't pass. What I've been talking about is directing our energy toward something that was halfway practical, something that might could get done. So now where we have no states with the option of doing anything about it, then we would have however many states wanted to. You could move from zero yard line, to the 60- or 70-yard line instead of standing pat, which is where we will remain if we don't abolish Roe vs. Wade.

Let states decide abortion with restrictions as they see fit

Q: That is the essence of the pro-choice argument, not individual choice, but pro-choice for states.

A: No, not really. How many pro-choice people say that they want to see the abolition of Roe vs. Wade? I don't know any. What I'm talking about is abolishing Roe vs. Wade [and allowing the abortion decision at the state level].

Q: So even if you disagree with them, states could have abortion on demand.

A: No, not abortion on demand. They could restrict. They would have the ability to restrict abortion more than they do now.

Q: But pre-Roe vs. Wade, some states had abortion on demand.

A: Well, they would not have anything under that situation that they don't have now. I mean, the gain would be on the pro-life side."

Actually, there is nothing logically wrong with the logic of the "states rights" position on abortion. Here is the was I see it.

Is there a constitutional right to an abortion? If yes, then no state can prohibit it. We are in agreement so far.

However, let us say that the S. Court strikes down Roe v. Wade. Whether or not states can then decide to be pro or anti abortion depends on the Court's reasoning. If the Court determines that the fetus is a "life" for the purposes of equal protection, then clearly you are right, no state would be able to permit abortions.

However, in my opinion, that is the least likely ground for the Court to over rule Roe v. Wade. The "strict constructionist" approach would be simply to over turn the basis of Roe-that there is a Constitutional right to privacy. After all, this right is not specifically in the Constitution, so a so called strict onstructionist can eliminate this right and by doing so eliminate abortion as a constitutional right.

However, this appraoch would not mandte that a state either prohibit or permit abortions. The state could, through its so-called police power, decude to prohibit abortions or not. Conversely, a state could find a right to privacy in their State Constitution. All of these possibilities would survive constitutional attack if the Court merely rules that there is no right to privacy.

Meanwhile, abortion rates are at their lowest level since 1975. It's important not to read too much into this data -- it depends on a lot of factors -- but it is true that abortion access in many states has been seriously compromised ...

If the driver for declining abortion rates was lack of access to abortion, you would see an increase in full term pregnancies, which I think we haven't seen. (This is certainly not to say that lack of access to safe abortion providers is OK, but just that something else is probably driving the statistic.)