# Abortion should be decided state-by-state because democracy is more important **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [February 17, 2026, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-should-be-decided-state-by-state-because-democracy-is-more-important/1027738 "2026-02-17T07:00:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 7
**Author:** ![steronz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steronz/32/11765_2.png) [@steronz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/steronz)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2026, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-should-be-decided-state-by-state-because-democracy-is-more-important/1027738/7 "2026-02-17T13:32:34Z")
The thing is, the particular flavor of democracy practiced in the United States kinda sucks. We’ve learned a lot in the past 250 years, lessons that have been adopted by other countries. Ours remains stuck with this awful two-party system and frequent minority rule. It’s relevant that the thread this one was spun off from isn’t about whether abortion _should_ be left up to the states, but rather is calling out anti-abortion activists for being hypocrites. “States rights” to commit murder is nonsensical, as murder is a federal crime, so if they genuinely think that abortion is murder then they already believe in a federal abortion ban. None of them care about states’ rights or even of having a philosophical argument about the nature of democracy; rather, they just know that there are stepping stones on the way to the total national abortion ban they so desperately want, and “leaving it up to the states” is one of them. **Max\_S** then comes along and makes the argument with _legitimate_ conviction. Whenever he puts forth arguments like this, I’m brought back to [this post by Ann\_Hedonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pitting-max-s/959074/339) about privilege. Of course, Max is right – we should absolutely go through the effort of enshrining abortion as a constitutional right, via an amendment. It’s true that vast majority of Americans, after all, _want_ abortion to be legal up to viability, and the only remaining debate is about what exceptions should be allowed after that. _I think_ there’s enough popular sentiment there to get to the 3/4s of states required to ratify an amendment. I _also think_ that our current democracy is so broken that it’s impossible to get Republican states to even go through the motions. We’re left with a broken system and millions of women who are profoundly affected by it. Ignoring their reality in order to argue for the upholding of _our particular flavor of democracy_ is a position of massive privilege. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/abortion-should-be-decided-state-by-state-because-democracy-is-more-important/1027738)._