Kansas’ new anti-abortion law highlights divide between states

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/06/kansas-new-anti-abortion-law-highlights-divide-between-states/

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is set to sign a tough new anti-abortion law that says life begins at conception and bans sex-selection abortions. In response, states like Washington and New York are scrambling to reduce restrictions on the procedures, such as loosening rules around late-term abortions.

The recent bipolar moves in Kansas and New York suggest that US states are increasingly leaving gridlocked Washington in the dust on policy ranging from abortion to marijuana, from immigration to guns. The result is a disparate patchwork of laws and policies that some suggest are beginning to turn America from a homogenous land of centrists and moderates into a partisan land of balkanized rules, economies, and lifestyles.

“There is nothing especially new about states going their own way,” New York Times columnist Bill Keller wrote late last month. “We fought a civil war, after all. And we have become accustomed to categorizing states as red or blue, based on their electoral choices. But it feels as if every news cycle brings another seemingly random example of a state veering off the mainstream… What’s up with that?”

To be sure, the rise of the tea party movement has helped fuel a nearly unprecedented situation where 75 percent of US statehouses are under single party control even as Washington seems mired in perpetual partisan gridlock. The widening policy gap between states, too, comes against another backdrop: The decision by the Obama administration, particularly though Obamacare, to use states as proxies to install federal policy.

[cali]

1. A couple of things: Obamacare has zip to do with new state restrictions

on abortion- it's been happening at an ever increasing pace since before it was voted into law. Secondly, only 2 states, NY and Washington have done anything to expand or protect rights, the other states- over 2 dozen of them- have all moved in the opposite direction. The gap is caused almost entirely by the states moving further to restrict.

[KansDem]

2. We can "vote with our feet"...

...if we don't like what the Kansas' GOP is doing, or so says Kansas SOS Kris Kobach--

From Proud2BlibKansan (November 2012):

More broadly, Kobach says Kansans who disagree with the state’s tilt are free to leave.

“Americans can vote with their feet,” he said, “and choose a state that reflects their values and the way of life they’d like to enjoy.

“If a person wants to live in a San Francisco lifestyle, they can go there. If they want to live a Kansas lifestyle, they can come here.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021790413

What a simpleton!

Sure, Kris...we can "vote with our feet," but have you seen the state of the economy? Hard finding work elsewhere...hard to "vote with our feet."

DUer raccoon said it best:

Good jobs--that is, jobs that pay enough to live on and have benes--are very hard to find.

People might want to stay in an area where their relatives are, instead of picking up and moving off to where they don't know a living soul.

I'm sick of people saying this, just move. As if it were so easy. Shows the speaker is an idiot.

[smirkymonkey]

3. Thank god I don't live anywhere near Kansas.

Although I feel sorry for the women who do. What a horrid state.