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# Moral Federalism: Does A President's Abortion Policy Matter?
- URL: https://mereorthodoxy.com/moral-federalism-does-abortion-policy-matter/
- Published: 2007-10-30T12:06:36.000Z
- Updated: 2026-04-20T21:21:30.000Z
- Description: Moral Federalism: Does A President's Abortion Policy Matter?
- Author: Mere Orthodoxy
- Tags: Matthew Lee Anderson, Pro-Life

George F. Will [says "no."](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/26/AR2007102601864.html?ref=mereorthodoxy.com)

> Many, perhaps most, Americans, foggy about the workings of their government, think that overturning *Roe* would make abortion, one of the nation's most common surgical procedures, illegal everywhere. All it actually would do is restore abortion as a practice subject to state regulation. But because Californians are content with current abortion law, their legislature probably would adopt it in state law.

Joseph Knippenberg counters:

> Stated another way, the debate about abortion isn’t simply a political or legal or constitutional debate. It’s a moral debate. For abortion proponents, giving up the *status quo* for "moral federalism" is a step in the wrong direction, a step toward a new moral constellation. Moral federalism is an end-state only if it’s legitimate to have essentially *any* preference regarding abortion. Since that’s in effect what we have now--i.e., what the law "teaches" now--if moral federalism is something different it’s different because its merely a political accommodation with "sin," that is, a step on the road to further delegitimization of abortion. A good thing, I think, but not one that folks to my left will acquiesce in.

Indeed. Will's claim that a candidate's position on pro-life issues shouldn't matter in the election demonstrates a naivety about the pro-life agenda, which in its best manifestations is seeking Wilberforce-type tactics to end-run abortion laws. A president not committed to pro-life issues may not be as invested, say, in easing the tax burden on single mother as a president who has moved that position to the center of their governing framework.

In other words, policies on abortion matter in presidential candidates, as the commitments a candidate holds there will (if he is to be consistent at all!) inform and expose his commitments elsewhere.