I’m curious: As the Constitution of the US says quite literally zero on the subject of the legal status or rights of the unborn (“discrete and independent personhood” for the sake of convention, perhaps?), why do we continue to discuss it? Constitutional jurisprudence ought to be entirely agnostic on the subject, as I can see no way for reasonable people to infer or extrapolate anything from the text that might be of help in settling the issue.
Roe v Wade was ultimately about the privacy of adults, which it is reasonable to conclude the Constitution bears some relevance to, even if we differ on the merits of the decision on that case. Without that standing legal precedent, there is, so far as I can tell, nothing but other issues related to the constitutionally-established rights (or lack, thereof) of pregnant adult women, States and their ability to engage in unfettered commerce within national borders, etc. that ought to be “fair game”, if you will, until we decide to amend the Constitution so that it explicitly defines personhood (which I doubt that will happen in my lifetime). I’ve simply no idea how or why any court would decide anything based upon the rights of the unborn, either explicitly or implicitly. I would agree that to do so would indeed be “judicial activism”. I make no particular stand on judicial activism here, except to observe that it is tough to predict when and how it will manifest.
Interstate commerce is still an intriguing angle to me, primiarily because I find the whole concept so mysterious, this equation of prohibition of abortion in some states with unconstitutional restriction of the rights of other states to do business.
Say a very “pro States’ Rights” court emerges with the confirmation of Roberts and Rehnquist’s inevitable replacement. Which is likely to trump the other: States’ rights to the unfettered “commerce” of abortion, or states’ rights to what I guess could be called “regional morality”? I’m aware of the afore-mentioned legal precendents. I just don’t understand how interstate commerce could conceivably stand in the way of any law, no matter how well-crafted, that bars at least some forms of abortion.