Ramesh disputes the notions that conservatives have consistently and historically believed “the federal government had no role to play in placing limits on abortion” and “that this was a matter of constitutional principle.” He provides evidence that, in fact, most Republicans have believed the federal government should have some role in restricting abortion. His argument is persuasive.

There’s also an example close to this magazine: Senator James L. Buckley, “the sainted junior senator from New York,” as his brother William F. Buckley designated him. James Buckley, though elected as the nominee of New York’s Conservative Party, caucused with Republicans in the Senate. Among his many wise and principled positions was a passionate attachment to the pro-life cause. In 1973, he responded to the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe v. Wade by introducing a “Human Life Amendment” to the Constitution. Announcing the amendment in the Senate, he explained why he thought it was necessary:

In a pair of highly controversial, precedent-shattering decisions, the Supreme Court has held that a pregnant woman has a constitutional right to destroy her unborn child. Not only do the Court’s rulings in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton contravene the express will of every state legislature in the country; not only do they remove every vestige of legal protection hitherto enjoyed by the child in the mother’s womb; but the Court reached its decisions through a curious and confusing chain of reasoning that, logically extended, could apply with equal force to the genetically deficient infant, the retarded child, and the insane or senile adult.

After reviewing these decisions, I concluded that, given the gravity of the issues at stake and the way in which the Court had carefully closed off alternative means of redress, a constitutional amendment was the only way to remedy the damage wrought by the Court. My decision was not lightly taken, for I believe that only matters of permanent and fundamental interest are properly the subject for constitutional amendment. I regret the necessity for taking this serious step, but the Court’s decisions leave those who respect human life in all its stages from inception to death with no other recourse.

In the course of his argument, Buckley made some observations with striking modern relevance. Of the potential for abortion to expand through the Court’s invocation of the “health of the mother,” he wrote that it has “included under the umbrella of ‘health’ just about every conceivable reason a woman might want to advance for having an abortion.” Of how abortion advocates are able to succeed, he wrote:

I profoundly believe that whatever acceptance abortion has acquired derives largely from the ability of its proponents to dissemble the true facts concerning the nature of unborn life and the true facts concerning what is actually involved in an abortion. I further believe that when these facts are fully made known to the American people, they will reject abortion save under the most exigent circumstances; that is, those in which the physical life of the mother is itself at stake. In recent weeks, in discussing this matter with friends and colleagues, I have found that, like many of the rest of us, they labor under certain misimpressions created by the proponents of permissive abortion. I therefore believe that it would be useful to call our colleagues’ attention to clinical evidence upon these points.

He elaborated on his actions in his 1975 book If Men Were Angels: A View from the Senate:

One of my most controversial attempts to focus public attention on an issue and to contribute to its understanding involved the question of abortion. Shortly after the Supreme Court issued two decisions that had the effect of striking down the laws of fifty states and the ethical tradition of more than 2,000 years of Western civilization, I introduced a resolution calling for a constitutional amendment that would restore protection to all human life at every stage, whether born or unborn. It is precisely because the issue is so controversial, because so many feel so deeply committed to and against the concept of permissive abortion, that I knew it was unlikely that final action would ever be taken on the issue in the Congress unless a sustained demand for action one way or the other could be mobilized. The strong instinct for survival that is sharply cultivated in political animals is such that a majority of Senators and Congressmen who did not feel a deep personal commitment on the matter could be counted upon to duck the issue rather than be forced to a vote on a matter that one way or another would be guaranteed to alienate a significant number of voters. It is a classic example of a no-win issue that no one welcomes having to face. It is for this reason that Senators Mark Hatfield of Oregon, Jesse Helms of North Carolina, Dewey Bartlett of Oklahoma, and I have devoted so much time trying to foster a fuller understanding by the public of the fact not only that abortion involves the taking of a biologically distinct and unique human life, but that the acceptance of abortion for reasons of convenience will lead inevitably to the acceptance of euthanasia for reasons of convenience. We have also worked to sustain the morale of the pro-life movement in the United States in its efforts to deploy effective political pressures for bringing the issue to a vote. This particular issue happens to be uncommonly controversial, but it and others must be faced if our system is truly to reflect the informed will of the people.

He concluded his Senate remarks thus:

To enter the world of abortion on request . . . is to enter a world that is upside down: it is world in which black becomes white, and right wrong; a world in which the powerful are authorized to destroy the weak and defenseless; a world in which the child’s natural protector, his own mother, becomes the very agent of his destruction.

I urge my colleagues to join me in protecting the lives of all human beings, born and unborn, for their sake, for our own sake, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of all those who may someday become the victims of the new ethic.

These are not the words of a man who, even at the time, wished only to wash his hands of abortion by sending the issue back to the states and then leave it be.