Decius wrote:
The rules you are actually going to live with are going to depend heavily on the state you live in. Places like South Dakota and South Carolina will move first, with much of the southeast following. I think this is likely to result in migrations, where liberals who are unhappy with the circumstances in their state move to places like New York and California where no bans are likely to be passed.

The threat is that this will deepen the polarization of the country.

Well, one of the threats. Another is that poor folks that can't move to a new state on the off chance that they might need an abortion are going to start having illegal -- read, dangerous -- abortions. There's going to be a social cost to that as well.

As for the polarization issue, yeah, I think that's possible, although I'm not at all certain that people hold strongly enough to their beliefs that they'd move out of a state just because they passed such a ban. I think it'll end up being pragmatic -- people will move when they need that abortion, or think they do, but not out of pure philosophy.

If this occurs, it'll be interesting to see where the money flows... which places will such a migration bankrupt, keeping in mind that if people really lived according to their principles, it'd be a two way migration. Or will the economies stay about the same.

RE: SCOTUSblog: 'Partial Birth' Abortion Ban upheld