Donald Trump is the furthest thing from a threat to democracy where abortion is concerned — and for activists on both sides, that’s alarming.
Rights to life or to reproductive choice can’t be true in some places but not others.
Yet Trump wants to leave the rights at stake in abortion to local determination.
He’s putting democracy in the states above what both sides see as a higher principle.
Many pro-lifers feel betrayed — but Trump’s position is in fact their movement’s lifeline.
His Supreme Court appointments created the majority that overturned Roe v. Wade, delivering the pro-life movement the greatest victory it’s ever won.
Thanks to the Dobbs decision, there’s no longer a federal right to abortion.
But success changed the issue’s politics profoundly.
Before Dobbs, pro-lifers made common cause with legal conservatives who believed in strict construction of the Constitution, which makes no mention of abortion.
The anti-Roe coalition really had two components — pro-lifers and strict constructionists who were not necessarily anti-abortion but believed Roe was bad law.
Although the Supreme Court decided the issue, getting the right mix of justices on the court was a political project.
It required winning elections, and the anti-Roe coalition won enough to achieve its goal.
Only now the anti-Roe coalition is split, and pro-lifers by themselves are losing.
They’ve been defeated in every state referendum so far, and Republicans fear a backlash in support of abortion rights will hurt GOP candidates, too — possibly costing the party the presidential contest.
Democrats are certainly pleased to have abortion initiatives on the ballot in Florida and Arizona this November.
But even though state battles are hard enough, principled pro-lifers think abortion has to be a national issue:
Human life can’t begin at different times in different places just because a different party controls the legislature or voters pass a referendum.
If life begins at conception, that must be as true in New York or California as in Texas.
Yet even many conservatives blanch at what pro-life consistency means for in vitro fertilization and some forms of birth control.
IVF creates more human embryos than can be implanted, with the remainder destroyed or forever frozen.
Consistently following the premise that life begins at conception would mean outlawing IVF, as well as pharmaceutical contraception that might prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in a woman’s womb.
As a practical matter, abortion opponents concede that some restrictions are better than none, which is why in most states the debate is over limiting abortion after a certain number of weeks’ gestation, not a total ban, and few Republicans contemplate curbing IVF.
Pro-life leaders are troubled by Trump’s “leave it to the states” position, however.
The political logic is clear; pro-lifers get the strong restrictions they want in some places rather than nowhere, which was the case before Dobbs.
And while Democrats hope abortion will still hurt Republicans in November, Trump is trying to rebuild the winning anti-Roe coalition.
Yet to say abortion is something for states to decide, in principle, forfeits the claim that there’s any objective truth in the debate above local feelings.
Abortion-rights advocates also believe their position must be enshrined nationwide — and the evidence of every election since Dobbs suggests they would only win bigger in a national fight.
Pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe if the struggle gets re-nationalized.
Proposing modest national restrictions, after 15 or 16 weeks, doesn’t hold much hope of changing the math when voters even in red states like Kansas and Ohio have approved more liberal policies by referendum.
If Republicans won the White House and both chambers of Congress, they could pass such a law — only to see it repealed as soon as Democrats retake power.
Democrats wouldn’t even have to repeal it; they can invert the effect of a law that restricts abortion simply by adding open-ended exceptions.
In theory, Roe itself permitted strong restrictions after the second trimester, but exceptions for the health of the mother — including mental well-being — were so broadly construed as to negate any strict limit.
Pro-lifers upset with Trump mistake their situation.
They’re not missing an opportunity to declare a universal right to life; they’re rather in a pitched battle to stop the other side from reestablishing a universal right to abortion.
It’s a battle they’ll lose without allies like Trump.
Right-to-life leaders want a philosopher-statesman to express their position in the language of absolute principle.
But historically, before there could be a Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln, the American people had to recognize for themselves what their rights were, through intense debate in the colonies and states.
It’s too soon for a Jefferson or Lincoln; for now there’s only Trump or something worse.
Daniel McCarthy is the editor of Modern Age: A Conservative Review. To read more by Daniel McCarthy, visit www.creators.com
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Allowing the local states to decide abortion is a great leap forward for THE PEOPLE who are abhorred with the practice of abortion, desiring the freedom of choice to not finance or approve those who choose to engage in it with OUR tax dollars, and not be forced as co-con-SPIRTors to finance it nationally with their own life forces in the form of personal financial resources, and thus become biblical enablers of it. Keeping the issue open to discussion locally at least allows a small chance to save the souls or change the minds of self-destructive Self-God lost people who demand the God-like power of life and death over innocent others by killing their own Consciences first,,,then that of the nation, the very vehicle God speaks to us all.
Romans 1-28-32
“Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things BUT ALSO APPROVE of those who practice them. Enter our current President.
Trump won’t EVER BE AbLE TO please all of the pro-lifers, OR the pro-choicers..
Trump wants to leave the rights at stake in abortion to local determination. (At State Level)
He’s putting democracy in the states above what both sides see as a higher principle.
“He”?? Donald Trump is NOT putting himself above the Supreme Court ruling.
Did not the Supreme Court of the U.S. rule that abortion was to be left up to the States to decide?
Did God not rule in the 6th of the 10 Commandments “Thou Shalt Not Kill”?
Prov 6:16-19
There are six things the LORD hates,
seven that are detestable to him:
• haughty eyes, (self-righteous, self-worshipping)
• hands that shed innocent blood, (I think abortions fall into this)
• a heart that devises wicked schemes,
• feet that are quick to rush into evil,
• a false witness who pours out lies
• and a man who stirs up dissension among brothers.
Exactly what human right gives a woman the right to murder her unborn baby?
What about the Baby’s human rights?
A woman’s body ends at the end of the baby’s umbilical cord and that is where the baby’s body begins.
It is NOT THE WOMAN’S BODY THAT THEY ARE KILLING;
it is the life of the baby’s body!!
Abortion does not make a woman the mother an unborn child, it makes her the mother of a dead baby. It does not take a village to raise a child, it takes two parents, Adam and Eve were Parents, Sodom and Gomorrah were Villages. Since Roe v Wade abortion has become legal but NOT rare as promised by Democrats by the lying secular minions where lying becomes their now expected native tongue.. SInce the demise of Roe v Wade, now thanks to Trump at least it has become more rare and not promoted as something good or something normal in society by getting enabled in forcing good people to pay for bad things with the used and abused life force of their honest earned tax dollars making WE THE PEOPLE co-conspirators in their evil.
A woman’s “choice” ends when she decides to spread her legs. Once pregnant, the baby has as much right to life as the mother has.
Consider what would happen if the unborn child could speak, and demand his/her rights at the expense of the mother!
There are so many forms of contraception out there – including “brainless” methods like the Shot and the Patch – that there should be nearly zero unwanted pregnancies in this country. The fact that abortion is still a major industry is a testament to the laziness of both men and women, and the ready-availability and acceptance of child-murder.
AND i note in MOST EVERY Pro-abortion debate, THEY ONLY MAKE Mention of the MOTHERS desire.. RARELY (IF ever), have i seen them even MENTION The father! It s like the father ONLY Exists, for child support, and sperm donation… Once that’s done, they don’t.
Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial. Then there are the sheepdogs,,,the Christians of the warrior class who protect the sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident, that former vast majority of Americans who were not inclined to hurt one another until Roe v Wade set the precedents to feed upon one another and sell out human life cheap. Thanks to Trump it just got a lot more expensive only for those who have no hearts.
Liberal Democrat demons stole abortion and child sacrifice as well as gay Temple harlots from Gilgamesh. As far as the garden of Eden goes, when their unzippered snake whispered to Eve “Eat of the fruits,,and the tree of our knowledge, you shall become as God” ( Make that Self-God). Thus, was born the Democrat party and the radical abortionist crippled wing that continues to plague and infect mankind to this day, where it’s “MY way or the highway” which when traveled turns into the highway to hell.