I encounter apropos of Roe v. Wade and any number of other issues the right-wing slogan: “Let the states decide.” Various arguments are made in favor of so-called “states’ rights,” most of them self-serving and spurious. I will make only a few points about this:

1) if it had been left to the states to decide, some Southern states would have continued slavery until the beginning of the twentieth century;

2) if it had been left to the states to decide, schools in the South would still be segregated;

3) if it were not for the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, thinly disguised child labor would be commonplace;

4) if it were not for federal environmental regulations the ruin of our country would have gone much farther than it has ;

5) most state legislatures are notorious for the wrong-headedness and outright foolishness of members who seem to have been elected because they are incompetent;

6) how many state legislatures are free of corruption?????