Red States, such Louisiana and other Southern States, pass laws either outlawing the murder of unborn children or placing heavy restrictions on the practice.

Blue States pass laws protecting doctors who prescribe abortion pills to women in Red States via remote consultation.

Thousands of babies in Red States are being murdered because of the willful action of Blue States:

‘Despite the state’s near-total ban, more people may have had abortions in Louisiana last year with thousands of women getting abortion medications through the mail, according to new data from #WeCount.

‘The survey, conducted by the Society of Family Planning, found that 4,180 Louisianians had an abortion in the first six months of 2023. Of those, 60% — or 2,480 patients — gave themselves an abortion after receiving medication through the mail from clinicians in states where abortion remains legal. Another 1,700 patients traveled out of state for an abortion.

‘The data also found more women accessed abortions last year than in 2020, when they were legal.

‘ . . . Researchers included data compiled by the Guttmacher Institute and counted 375 more abortions in Louisiana during the first half of 2023 than there were over the same period in 2020, when women could go to clinics.

‘ . . . In Mississippi, roughly half of women traveled out of state for an abortion, and half obtained pills from providers via the mail (1,570 and 1,735 respectively, for a total of 3,305). There were 1,720 telemedicine abortions in Alabama, compared to 3,395 patients who traveled out of state, for a total of 5,115 abortions. In both states, just as in Louisiana, the total number of abortions grew compared to 2020 data’ (Rosemary Westwood, ‘Survey: Louisiana’s abortion numbers rose in 2023 thanks to pills by mail,’ wwno.org).

Once again, with no exaggeration, thousands of innocent, helpless Red State citizens are being slaughtered with the express cooperation of Blue State governments.

Is this not an act of war?

What would be our response if thousands of adults were being killed because of the conscious decision of other governments?

But wait. That scenario has recently played out. President Trump removed the head of Venezuela’s government, allegedly in retaliation for that very thing: Mr Maduro is charged with sending in drugs that have killed thousands of US citizens.

Red State governments should take notice. There is very old precedent for conducting a limited operation into Blue States to end a threat to their people. This falls under the category of letters of marque and reprisal:

‘During the Middle Ages, European monarchs issued letters of marque and reprisal to private individuals as a form of state-approved self-help to retaliate for wrongs the individual had suffered at the hands of a foreign country or one of its nationals. The instruments functioned as legal permission for the injured party to seek redress in a prescribed manner—often by seizing ships or property owned by the offending state’s subjects. The letters also allowed their holders to apprehend the foreign subjects themselves until the offender had remedied the harm’ (Steve Mulligan, ‘Letters of Marque and Reprisal (Part 1): Introduction and Historical Context,’ congress.gov).

Normally, only the federal government is empowered to grant these kinds of letters (Article I, Section 8, clause 11), while the State governments are forbidden to do so (Art. I, Sec. 10, cl. 2); all powers of war the Framers generally wanted to place with the federal government so as to avoid fragmentation and confusion when it came to that very sensitive subject. However, there is an exception:

‘No State shall . . . engage in War, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent Danger as will not admit of delay’ (Art. I, Sec. 10, ‘Constitution of the United States,’ constitution.congress.gov).

The power to declare war was delegated by the States to the federal government. However, when actual danger threatens, the individual States are permitted to resume the exercise of this sovereign power of theirs to protect their people. And history furnishes us with an excellent example of this, and it is courtesy of our cold, calculating Yankee cousins in Maine (rather than those naughty, hot-headed Southerners):

‘Maine had troubles closer at hand, in what almost became a shooting war with Great Britain on her northern boundary. The dispute dated from the period immediately following the War of 1812, when the British claimed the whole of the upper part of the valley of St. John, above the 46th parallel. Maine claimed the same territory under the Treaty of 1783. The residents of Madawacka, evidently regarding themselves as citizens of Maine, sent representatives to the State Legislature, and otherwise identified themselves with Maine. But to New Brunswick authorities, the Madawackans were British citizens.

‘These claims and counter-claims led to a series of border incidents, climaxed in the summer of 1837 when a congressional agent, sent to the town to take a census in order to distribute the famed Federal surplus of 1836, was summarily arrested by a British constable and clapped in jail. Governor Dunlop, declaring that Maine’s soil had been invaded by a foreign power, prepared for the State to go to war against England on its own—as the State, lest it be forgotten, constitutionally had (and still would have) a right to do.(164) The British backed down before Dunlop’s bellicose preparations, released the agent, and arranged for an arbitration. . . .

‘Soon afterwards, as border incidents became more aggravated and Van Buren seemed disposed to do nothing more, Governor Kent brought matters to a head. The State’s sovereignty had been outraged; her appeals to Washington had proved fruitless. Now Kent was prepared to recommend that Maine “throw herself entirely upon her own resources, and maintain, unaided and alone, her just rights, in the determined spirit of free men.” The indignant Legislature backed him by appropriating $800,000, and Kent promptly ordered 10,000 militiamen called out. Within a week they were on their way to Aroostook County, under the command of General George W. Bachelder. At this, Congress hastily came to life, added its own appropriation of $10,000,000 and the President sent General Winfield Scott and his staff packing off to Augusta. Scott fortunately proved to be an able peacemaker; both sides withdrew their troops and released their prisoners, and the bloodless Aroostook War finally was settled in 1842 by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty’ (James Jackson Kilpatrick, The Sovereign States: Notes of a Citizen of Virginia, Regnery, Chicago, Ill., 1957, sovereignstates.org).

For border violations, Maine was willing to reassert her sovereignty and wage war against Great Britain. Red States are facing far more serious violations of their sovereignty and the rights of their most vulnerable citizens at the hands of Blue State governments, yet the response of the Red States has thus far been very timid, ever so tamely and mildly asking the unreliable federal courts to resolve the problem for them.

Taking the foregoing altogether, however, Red State governments should be able to see a more efficacious remedy to their problem of Blue State abortion abettors. If their requests for extradition of Blue State doctors prescribing abortion pills to women in their States are ignored, they are authorized both by the federal constitution and the Law of Nations to conduct a limited military-police operation to apprehend the criminal doctors and others supplying abortion pills in the Blue States and bring them to stand trial in the Red States where the abortions took place (authorized by issuing letters of marque and reprisal as a self-defense measure since normal procedures of justice have broken down).

But Republican elected officials are often rightly accused of blustering noisily about problems, while taking no substantive action to resolve them. Will they let thousands of babies continue to be murdered while they dither? Or will they act to stop the mass slaughter of their peoples? Such is the choice before them, and we ought to press them to choose the latter.

Granted, such an action would only affect the supply side. The demand side, the desire of young women to kill their babies, must also be dealt with. We must do a better job of encouraging mothers to love their children, not snuff out their lives. That is a long-term, complex project, but in the short-term, conservative/revivalist governments must do what they can to rapidly disrupt the Blue State murder of Red State babies. And letters of marque and reprisal should certainly be one of the leading options under consideration.