Chasing Abortion Rights Across the State Line by Linda Greenhouse

'Half slave and half free. The last time the United States split into two countries, it didn’t work out at all well.

If that sounds like a hyperbolic reaction to the yawning red state, blue state divide, so be it. It’s prompted by the picture that President-elect Donald J. Trump painted the other day of what would happen if he achieved his goal of appointing enough Supreme Court justices to overturn Roe v. Wade.

The question of abortion “would go back to the states,” Mr. Trump told Lesley Stahl of CBS News during a conversation on “60 Minutes.” Ms. Stahl asked him what would become of women seeking abortions in states that banned the procedure. “They’ll perhaps have to go — they’ll have to go to another state,” the president-elect replied.

And so they would, traveling a new underground railroad from red to blue. The image is not far-fetched. An Indiana legislator the other day announced a plan to introduce a “Protection at Conception” bill, criminalizing all abortions, when the State Legislature convenes in January. It’s wildly unconstitutional today and for the immediate future, of course — but down the road, in a world of Trump-picked Supreme Court nominees confirmed by a Republican Senate presided over by Vice President Mike Pence, who was one of the country’s leading anti-abortion governors, it’s possible to envision such a measure being upheld. (As of today, Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel A. Alito Jr. would overturn Roe in a heartbeat, as Justice Antonin Scalia would have done if given the chance; Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. would probably prefer a more incremental route to cutting off access to abortion, so the question would be whether he would join four solid votes for taking Roe all the way down.)'>>>

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/24/opinion/chasing-abortion-rights-across-the-state-line.html?