Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
10 hours ago
Actually expanding the Federal government's power to mandate laws that the states can or cannot legislate is the very clear purpose of the second sentence of the 14th amendment: "No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Thus no state may make a law that infringes on a right that one has with respect to the Federal government. So, for example, prior to the 14th amendment, the 5th amendment Eminent domain clause ("nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.") did not apply to states: they were free to take property without compensation. IT was a right that existed only vis a vis the Federal government. Subsequent to the passage of the 14th, the Federal government was able to mandate that state laws which allowed uncompensated taking were voided.

The Federal government has no power to require that a state MUST pass a given law, but it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws.

Francisco Machado Tandem_fusion
9 hours ago
"it does have the power, via the court, to prohibit it from having certain laws" - That power is bounded by two principles: If the state law infringes upon powers delegated by the Constitution to the federal government or that law is in violation of the Constitution. "deprive any person of life..." may depend upon the interpretation of what constitutes a "person." Clearly the phoetus is alive (I think there's no question there) and isn't a citizen since the constitution specifically says "born" - but I suspect it would require an act of Congress to define at what stage it is Constitutionally protected as a person. For precedent: A felon who kills the mother, causing the death of a phoetus, can be charged with two counts of murder.

Tandem_fusion Francisco Machado
5 hours ago
As to your first point: obviously.

As to your second, you're little out in left field. The due process clause acts only upon the state. the STATE may not deprive a person of life, etc. That has nothing to do with abortion, but rather with the taking of life by the government.

To the matter of defining so-called "personhood", it is nothing more than a distraction, It is not necessary to determine, nor is possible to determine empirically if there is a actual distinction between a live human and a person, as opposed too a mere semantic distinction. .The Federal government can define all it wishes, but it cannot mandate that a state use that definition to nay purpose at all. Absent a Federal nexus —and there is essentially none in abortion— congress has no power to mandate anything.

Tot the matte of fetal homicide laws you're assuming a bit much. Not all states have fetal homicide law. 38 states have fetal homicide laws; 29 from the earliest state of development. It is inaccurate to say that " a felon who kills the mother" etc., etc., since fetal homicide laws vary widely among the 38 states, but in general terms they do not require that the mother be killed, only that the fetus be killed. And related to the other matter of defining persons, those laws are dependent not on semantics but rather on the desire and intent of the legislature. They are not bound by the questions of whether the fetus is a person

SchroedingersDog Tandem_fusion
7 hours ago
"they were free to take property without compensation."

They could do it without running afoul of the specific words in the Constitution, but they could not do it would breaking the underlying code of the USA. That is, citizens have natural rights. Rights are not granted by the State, the State has no natural rights. Instead, The People grant limited authority to the government which they may revoke after a process.

That's the theory. Eventually, people fall to their usual vices and they bid the Government to enact their passions, such as to rule over others. The Republic was designed to frustrate those impulses, but as predicted it has slid towards Democracy, the system where the passions of the mob (oft directed by a few) become rule.

“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Tandem_fusion SchroedingersDog
5 hours ago
Read Barron v. Baltimore, 32 U.S. 243. It is the leading case on the matter of Federalism, which is what we are actually discussing here, and dealt specifically with 5th amendment takings clause. If you do so carefully you will come to an understanding that the Federal government had no role in preventing states from engaging in behavior which the Federal government could not engage in. State sovereignty was not just a vague concept, it was the operative force in the relationship between the Federal government, the states and the people.