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Wisconsin and the influence of the abortion question on elections — 52 Comments

  1. This all may be correct but didn’t this Kelly guy lose a Supreme Court election by a very similar amount a couple of years ago, also?

    Maybe it has something to do with the candidate.

  2. neo,

    Yeah, I don’t know the ends and outs of this election but conservatives love to mock Democrats for trotting out Beto O’Rourke and Stacy Abrams to lose time after time but our side does that also.

    Candidates lose for a reason especially when they comfortably lose and to ignore that is idiotic.

    At least we would never do that on the presidential level…

  3. If it’s abortion to blame, then shouldn’t Republicans give up opposition to abortion? If they want to win elections?

    And if they do, then what’s the Republican Party about besides winning elections? Nothing. An echo, not a choice.

    That’s what most of the Republican base understands, and what the party establishment never will. If the Republican Party will sell out on abortion what won’t they sell out on?

  4. So many women voters look at their children and think “I wish I had scheduled an abortion”.

  5. I think the total bans are widely unpopular. Although we now have a “veto-proof” majority in both houses in NC, the latest GOP addition was a moderate Democrat. I don’t think she will vote for a strict law. I am hoping for a European style twelve-to-thirteen week law, with medical supervision required, to replace our current twenty week law.

    Where Democrats have strong majorities (Left Coast states) or even slim majorities (Minnesota), they have passed laws which in effect permit killing the child up to the moment of natural birth. There will be horror stories about the elective killing of children near full-term and about the sale of baby parts coming from those states, which may affect public perception of these very permissive laws.

  6. Bodily sovereignty until ex-utero viability, Planned Parenthood #CecileTheClinicalCannibal, or a sanctuary State with a compelling cause (e.g. carbon credits). Women and girls, second… third, and baby, maybe #SS BLM. Social science is the last bastion of religious [ethical] zealotry. That said, human rites are a wicked solution to a hard problem: keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the “burden” of evidence aborted, perhaps cannibalized, then her carbon sequestered in darkness.

    Six weeks to baby meets granny in biological and legal state. Net Zero abortions following conception is a goal we should all strive for.

  7. So many women voters look at their children and think “I wish I had scheduled an abortion”.

    The baby… fetal-baby “burden” h/t Obama.

    There is no mystery in sex and conception. Men, women, and “our Posterity” are from Earth. Feminists are from Venus. Masculinists are from Mars. Social progressives are from Uranus. #WarOfTheWorlds

  8. yes, they have condemned the state to a hellish existence, like milwaukee writ large, allowing a known racist like prostazowitz, who knows what other bank they had empty for this result there will be no way back as it collapses into the swamp,

  9. If Wisconsin Democrats needed the 1849 law to remain in effect in order to win an all-important judgeship. Which then enables that court to declare the 1849 law unconstitutional… does that not also present an opportunity for the Wisconsin legislature to pass a bill more acceptable for the electorate?

    Kate astutely opines, “There will be horror stories about the elective killing of children near full-term and about the sale of baby parts coming from those states, which may affect public perception of these very permissive laws.”

    I cannot envision that God can ever have intended that pregnancy result from rape or incest.

    A without exception ban on abortion implicitly argues that either God condones pregnancies resulting from rape or incest or is indifferent to the burden such a pregnancy places upon the woman. I for one cannot imagine that a loving, merciful God can either be indifferent to or condone such a pregnancy.

  10. I’m fine with a 20-week law, but then I understand the problems the bumper sticker comments fail to address. Until the Supreme Court made it so, abortion wasn’t even a top five issue to voters in the United States.

    And if they do, then what’s the Republican Party about besides winning elections?

    They could pivot to border security, immigration control, economic security, energy security, smaller federal government, deficit reduction, school choice, parental rights, etc. People who fill more secure will be less inclined to make poor choices in life and more comfortable with the idea of raising a child to enjoy a prosperous future.

  11. the most evil people seem to win, it seems its what Vos wants, the Toppiest top man in the GOP, when choosing a road, they choose the rickety bridge over the crocodiles,

  12. Frederick:

    The Republican Party is not the party of absolute and total bans on abortion under all circumstances. That was the choice in Wisconsin. The percentage of people in the Republican Party in favor of that extreme a ban is probably not all that large.

  13. Do you stand for something or win elections? Is the ability to experience an orgasm without consequences worth killing children? Is the electorate so debased that killing children has to take precedence over everything else? It comes down to a culture demanding what they want regardless of consequences. Suppose we accept a six week limit. What happens when a twelve week limit is demanded then a twenty week limit and the liberals play on the “they want to take away you rights” mantra. Do we still want to win elections. Liberal women will be the death of this country.

  14. Kimberly Strassel wrote an excellent “The GOP’s Abortion Flop” in Friday’s WSJ. I wrote to her:

    I applaud you for taking a strong stand and eloquently arguing to the GOP audience. I have always been pro-abortion, but have been embracing the right on most issues, especially neighborhood and national security. I respected the states-rights legal reasoning of the Supreme Court, but was dismayed by how it unfolded in the GOP. I hope you start an upheaval on this issue in the GOP. Going quiet on this issue is not enough. The GOP needs a noisy fight to get attention and then jettison its anti-abortion label.

  15. The Republican legislatures have to learn to compromise. The 15 week rule is acceptable if you want to be realistic. As a medical student and intern I saw woman die from abortions. There has to be a valve to release pressure. Arizona also has a 19th century law in place after the Supremes decided that case. We just “elected” a Soros supported governor. Probably cheating was involved but we need margins beyond the level of cheating.

  16. It does not help that Tony Evers, when he was Superintendent of Public Instruction, talked many schools into adopting Whole Language.

    Now we have a generation of young people who are functionally illiterate. What better way to keep people uneducated, and unemployable? You can then blame racisim, sexism, and capitalism for their misfortune, not their being indoctrinated, rather then educated.

    Of course, this keeps them being dependent on the State, which benefits the Left, keeping them in power, where they want to be.

    Tony Evers is an evil, evil man.

  17. Yes, by all means let us keep the sacred rite of abortion! What else can possibly be as important as our sacred, sacred, sacred (have I emphasized it enough?) rite to an abortion! (And I have not misspelled “rite,” as it is, in fact a religious ritual among the leftoid worshippers of Baal, Molech and Inanna/Ishtar, those same harpies who used to burn their children on the horns of the altars they built for that very purpose. Of course, today we sacrifice our children on the altar of “choice”! What a wonderfully deceitful word that is. What a deceitfully wicked people we have become. Well, some of us, at any rate.

  18. The Republicans are pretty good at making stupid unforced errors when they stake out extremist positions that represent about 15% of the base, as their platform. But the Democrats are masters at framing such farm-league mistakes into the worst possible light using the captured Legacy Corporate Main Stream Media, and gaining solidly predictable election wins. The Republicans leading these efforts are terrified to address it head on because they fear it will be seen as backtracking.

    It’s pitiful to watch. Many of us predicted what a disaster it would be for Republicans to decide to go Victorian-scorched-earth on the abortion issue, as if the USA was made up of people that want abortion back into the alleys – and it’s precisely what has happened. What political stupidity. It’s easy to see how one can be against abortion and at the same time, not want to have the Federal Government dictating whether that’s right or not.

  19. Aggie using that old liberal play book. “Extremist” check, “back alley” check. Haven’t heard that one in awhile. “Victorian” check. “Scorched earth” check. The old favorites. And one poster brought out separation of church and state. Reaching deep in the bag of a thing that isn’t. It’s the state may not establish a religion. Is there any hill that slinky spined folk will die on? Does morality matter? In my lifetime we have gone from boundaries that would not be crossed to the state sanctioning of mutilating twelve year olds. Progress!

  20. @Gerry:And the very same election handed the GOP a Senate supermajority.

    And the justices needed to nullify it by redrawing the districts. The supermajority won’t survive one lawsuit. The Wisconsin justices will have the districts drawn around the people they want to see elected.

  21. @neo:The Republican Party is not the party of absolute and total bans on abortion under all circumstances.

    That’s your perspective, and it’s not shared by quite a few people who have been Republican a lot longer than you. I don’t say you’re wrong, I’m saying that you can’t define these folks away. You’re already seeing some of them in the comments here.

    Republicans can’t win anything without the pro-life base. Jettisoning them is the most explicit way possible to say that Republicans are about elections and not principles. (I have been saying THAT for quite some time, of course.) It’s an echo, not a choice.

    Irrelevant and increasingly so, since as I also keep saying, votes and voters don’t really matter anymore, not at the Federal level at any rate. Maybe we can save some of the states.

  22. @Leland:They could pivot to border security, immigration control, economic security, energy security, smaller federal government, deficit reduction, school choice, parental rights, etc.

    The national GOP already sold us out on just about every one of these, every chance they got.

    In 2017 they controlled both Houses and the Presidency, and which of these did they do?

    We got tax cuts, and we got three conservative-ish SC justices, who rolled back Roe v Wade, which we’re now apparently blaming (along with Trump) for where are now.

    I don’t see much ground for confidence that the national Republican Party has any desire to advance any of these things and lots of revealed preferences for avoiding doing so.

  23. Frederick:

    It depends what you mean by “control.” After the 2016 election, the GOP had 52 Senate seats that were later reduced to 51. So a few RINOs could gum up the works quite easily, and did – most notably John McCain, and also Collins and Murkowski. Bills need to pass in both Senate and House to be signed by the president and become law.

    In the present Congress, Manchin and Sinema have served the same function for the Democrats.

  24. Frederick:

    Regarding abortion – nothing I said was an attempt to “define those folks away.” I explicitly acknowledged them when I wrote “The percentage of people in the Republican Party in favor of that extreme a ban is probably not all that large.” Obviously, they exist. And obviously, their votes are needed – but their position is a losing one for the party. THAT is the dilemma. Taking an absolutist anti-abortion position leads to Democrat victory in a state like Wisconsin when the election is for a Supreme Court judge, when that court will be likely to decide the abortion issue.

    Wisconsin may be a lost state now because the Supreme Court there will be in charge of deciding on whether certain voting safeguards are constitutional, and whether the Republican redistricting that led to strong Republican majorities in the legislature of the state will be held constitutional as well. So the loss of the Court majority could easily lead to loss of the state for the GOP.

  25. Gerry:

    That supermajority rests on redrawn districts that the new court will almost undoubtedly change to the GOP’s disadvantage.

  26. @neo

    And I’d also add the loss of many, many lives for the unborn or recently born. I confess I am less of an absolutist on abortion than Frederick (especially after studying the bans on it and birth quotas in Communist dictatorships like Ceaucescu’s Romania), but even if I was I think there needed to be some soul searching about what position would be more tenable. As soon as I heard the specifics of the 1849 law and the grounds for it I internally cringed because I could pretty well guess the Left would overwhelm and fairly easily. Hearing there were people on the right opposed to any redefinition of that made me conclude this would likely hand victory to the Left and conflict with that camp’s stated goal. And now the Left will attempt to foist far more uncontrollable abortion and probably get away with far more of it than bending (as horrible as that is) to draw restrictions. It was ceding the initiative to the Left.

    And I’m not sure how I feel about that. There is something incredibly noble about drawing one’s line in the sand and fighting it out to the end, but that is not the only way to win a struggle.

  27. Steve (retired/recovering lawyer):

    Your rhetoric about “the sacred rite of abortion” is misplaced here. In practical terms, what keeping that 1849 law and opposing attempts at passing a more moderate one will lead to is a judicial overruling of the 1849 law. The law will almost certainly not remain in effect, and the “sacred rite of abortion” will almost certainly be kept in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, the results of the judicial election will also have other far-reaching consequences that will be bad for the right.

  28. Frederick:

    The statistics are as follows:

    Eighty-six percent of Americans of all parties think a pregnant woman should be able to legally have an abortion if she becomes pregnant because of rape or incest, the PORES/SurveyMonkey survey found. That includes 94 % of Democrats, 88 % of independents and 76 % of Republicans.

  29. Rick Cook:

    See my comment above this one. It’s not just “liberal women.” It’s almost everyone who is against a total and absolute ban on abortions. Keep trying to ban it totally and you will lose almost every election. And yes, there’s more to life than winning elections. But an absolutist position doesn’t prevent the thing you are trying to prevent – it further enables it and enables more extreme versions of it to become law.

  30. The Democrats have used the end of Roe v Wade as a specter to scare their base. It’s a straw man argument in at least thirty-five states. But they point to states where abortion has been prohibited and say it’s going to be enacted nationwide if Republicans get in power. And their base believes it. Fear of anti-abortion laws is pretty high here in Washington state where there’s practically no chance of abortion bans.

    As long as there’s no national policy, the Democrats will continue to ride this pony.

    I see a middle ground that might satisfy the 60% of people who aren’t at the extremes.

    Why are abortion bans bad? Because they don\’t stop abortions. Instead, they drive them underground and into back alleys. We should all want abortions to be safe, legal and as rare as possible.

    Abortion performed within fifteen weeks seems to be acceptable to most of those in the middle. There could be provisions for later abortions to save the life of the mother. It could also be made law that crisis pregnancy centers would be required as an alternative for women to carry the child to birth if they choose.

    The law could specify that only money donated by those who favor abortion could be used to pay for abortions. And the crisis pregnancy centers would be funded by people opposed to abortion. No government funding of either choice.

    Legal, safe, restrictions, choice for both options, and no government money. Where am I going wrong?

  31. @Turtler:less of an absolutist on abortion than Frederick

    I’m not any sort of an absolutist on abortion. But I try to represent fairly views that I don’t agree with.

    @neo: 76 % of Republicans

    Which doesn’t refute what I said. Republicans won’t win anything without that 24%.

    I also never said that “most of the Republican base” desires a total ban on abortions. I said only that “most of the Republican base” understands that if the Republican party sells out abortion, they’ll sell out anything. (I’m pretty certain of the “sell out anything” already.)

  32. Turtler:

    You write: “There is something incredibly noble about drawing one’s line in the sand and fighting it out to the end, but that is not the only way to win a struggle.”

    Actually, in this case, it is the way to lose a struggle.

    “Noble” is an interesting word, isn’t it? It makes me think of Don Quixote. He was so noble that he was insane – or perhaps he was so insane that he was noble.

    Those who insist on total and complete abortion bans are noble in the sense that they lose sight of (or don’t care about) the practical consequences of their actions, which is the opposite of what they intend. And they won’t listen to Sancho Panza, because they are not interested in practical efforts in this world nor in compromise.

  33. JJ:Legal, safe, restrictions, choice for both options, and no government money. Where am I going wrong?

    Where I think you are going wrong is that you are thinking that the national parties are trying to find a solution most of us can live with. They are not. They are and have been for decades deliberately staking out extreme positions to bolster their fundraising and turn out their bases, and they are so far out on limbs they can’t climb down.

    If this were not true with the parties in Wisconsin they would have compromised already. Both sides decided to take it to the mattresses instead, egged on now doubt by out-of-state money and activism. Because gaining power was more important than working to solve the problem.

    I would like to see the current two-party system collapse before America does so we can still save something from the wreckage. Always nice to see another Washingtonian and I’ll be bummed if you have to go to Florida or Texas.

  34. Maybe an analogy will help.

    Suppose a politician has long crusaded against corporal punishment. He equates spanking to child abuse, emphasizes the essential innocence of children, and the fundamental cruelty of those who would inflict pain on them.

    Then, when he gets through a court decision a total ban on corporal punishment, but he finds it polls badly, he says he’s okay with spanking babies but not older children, and only really bratty and colicky babies but not sweet quiet babies. Where does his integrity go?

    This is where Republicans are with abortion. “Life begins at conception”. “It’s a child not a choice”. I don’t say those who believe these things are wrong to do so.* I’m saying that anyone who’s ever said those words can’t turn around and say that even younger fetuses are okay to abort, or fetuses conceived through crimes which the fetuses were guiltless of, without exposing themselves as a someone who could never possibly have believed anything they’d been saying.

    Once you invoke babies and the killing of babies you’re pretty stuck.

    *I don’t say I agree or disagree with any particular set of restrictions on abortion, I’m just trying to describe the logic of the situation. We’re at a time in our history where people only listen to you to find out what “side” you might be on so they can impute to you all the opinions and bad qualities of those on the other “side”, or alternatively all the opinions and good qualities of those on their own side. The only winning move is not to play…

  35. Are we ready to swallow another media and talking point narrative again, hook, line, and sinker? Several (which, I believe are, other, relevant) questions: 1) What if this election (WI) is just another one of the many stolen elections (and, that, could explain the Kansas result(s), also)? 2) What if the large amounts of money coming into my home state (and Kansas) totally bought and paid for the results (election fraud) we see (and these results are not due to the voting for/on the pro-abortion issue, at all)?
    If this is the case, then the narrative has been stolen -as people will believe the election (?) result(s) is(are) due to the conservative (extreme) stand for life from conception.
    3) If this media, talking point, narrative is accepted, then, because we have been “sold a bill of goods, “‘have we not been persuaded that the pro-life issue is not important to majority people, when it really is?
    4)When will we learn our lesson? Many people fell for (accepted, and promoted) Russia, Russia (in both the election and the Hunter Biden laptop story); the deep state view on how to proceed with Ukraine (and not a duly elected president) – Impeachment I; J6 was an insurrection [when it was actually an orchestrated event where there were embedded FBI and DC Police, provocateurs (on Capitol Hill and with the Proud Boys and other groups) as well as the cooperation and encouragement of the Capitol Police opening the secure Capitol doors to the (authentically) mostly peaceful demonstrators] (along with the (so called, non-)murder of Ashli Babbitt) – Impeachment II; the current administration and resident of the White House does not have to follow current laws on the books: sanctioning an invasion over our Southern Border, evading prosecution over Afghanistan, not arresting those violating the law on Supreme Justices’ homes, allowing two standards of justice in our country; follow the science; and, believe the experts; etc., ad infinitum. . .
    I believe it was Goner Pyle who said something to the effect- “Burn me once, Shame on you! Burn me twice, Shame on me!”
    5)When are we going to wake up and learn to look past and behind the prevailing big media narrative and talking points?

  36. Neo-

    This is not even primarily about abortions. Does morality play ANY role in elections? Like I said in my last post, we have reached a point of mutilating twelve year olds.aybe that is starting to change with advocates like Chloe Cole. But the problem is it happened. No one had the courage or even the moral yardstick to question this. I still blame the electorate. I’m going back to the beginning foundations of this country. A Constitution for a “Religious and Virtuous” people. Or is it simply utilitarian then? If it is we have gone to a very bad place and it would be better for the thing to collapse than continue.

  37. Single Issue Pro-Lifers control the GOP from the Precinct level all the way up. They are in total denial. Reading most comments above shows almost total refusal to see reality IMO. The huge independent voter group absolutely will not support them, and they are unable to run on anything else.

    In Florida they can’t resist grasping defeat from the jaws of victory. Precinct up control is very hard to change. They are locked in and control the primary process. The teachers and public employee unions control the Democrat Party in much the same way.

    Change will have to come from disaffected Democrat voters. People like Elon Musk, Bari Weiss, Tulsi Gabbard, and the flood of younger people who follow Alex Kaschuta and Rob Henderson etc.

    Yang’s Forward Party might be a vehicle. A huge public reaction against both rabid peo-lifers and trans affirming care fanatics might see Forward take off.

  38. abortion is a peculiar institution and a necessary one, it appears, three generations were wiped out, the family was perhaps fatally crippled, making the people dependent on the state, it makes a infinite stream of illegal serfs labour almost inevitable, it largely falls on minorities, as gloria steinem and the late nick von hoffman seem to gleefully pronounce, and it was another stepping stone to the cult of dysmorphia and mutilation that we suffer through,

  39. Frederick responded to me:
    “The national GOP already sold us out on just about every one of these, every chance they got.”

    I just want to note that I agree. My point was they could pivot to those other things. The hope that the GOP will hold the line is gone, so how about selling out on the social ideals and at least helping build a safer and more productive society. I understand many will say it is impossible without a moral compass, but if you believe we’ve already lost that compass, then we are lost either way.

    My last point about secure and financially well people making better decisions is similar to a view the Jordan Peterson has been making recently in regards to the environment. If you really care about a better world environment, the left wouldn’t be pushing for regulations that destroys our security and economy, because as people become destitute, they make even poorer choices. I think he is right. You want the moral compass back, don’t impose it. Fix the various other problems, and abortion will go down because you did.

    Finally, if I going to demand better from the GOP, well then I rather demand better on those things they previously abandoned whether than having them hold the line on abortion. And as Mike K noted (and I was hinting at), 100% abortion ban has its own ethical dilemma that suggest it is very immoral.

  40. With a 2/3 Senate majority, The Republicans can now impeach and convict Proto. Ask yourself if you need to: What would the Democrats do if the situation were reversed? They would impeach in a heartbeat, but of course the Republicans are too principled.

  41. 100% abortion ban has its own ethical dilemma that suggest it is very immoral.
    ==
    It is the only moral option.

  42. But they point to states where abortion has been prohibited and say it’s going to be enacted nationwide if Republicans get in power. And their base believes it. Fear of anti-abortion laws is pretty high here in Washington state where there’s practically no chance of abortion bans.

    And because this particular point has been picked at (for me, at least*) in the past week, I feel the need to point out that the GOP has people like Lindsey Graham going out of their way to encourage the idea that the GOP would, in fact, be behind a national abortion ban. Never mind that the decision that annulled Roe did so by announcing that abortion was beyond the scope of the federal government’s remit.

    * Caught part of an interview of Graham professing amazement that he was being associated with the RESTRICT Act, professing ignorance of a bill he co-sponsored.

  43. Art Deco,

    No, it isn’t. It’s just as immoral as abortion being always legal. Forcing a woman to go through with pregnancy when it will change her body, change her future, and she did not make the choice to even conceive a child (as in the case of rape) is borderline slavery.

  44. From VOX:

    “On Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) introduced a bill that would ban abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy based on the unproven claim that fetuses can feel pain at that point in development. It includes exceptions for cases of rape, incest, and to save the life of the pregnant person.

    The proposal is stricter than versions of the bill Graham has previously introduced, which would have banned abortion after 20 weeks of pregnancy, and goes further than many existing state restrictions on abortion. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 44 states ban abortion after a certain point in pregnancy, most after about 20 weeks since the pregnant person’s last menstrual period.”

    Graham proposed a bill putting restrictions at some point in the pregnancy. It was categorized by the media as a ban, rather than a restriction. Notice the “unproven” claim to the fact unborn children can feel pain.

    I rate the claim Graham was behind the idea of a national abortion ban as patently FALSE.

    It’s what the media does though. Lie and distort. On the search for an honest journalist.

    I’ve got plenty of beefs with Graham. No need to distort his position here.

  45. If women want to vote for the party of transgenders in their spaces because the other party says they can not have their own girl child executed, then I guess they can reap the world they sow.

  46. well its moral but not practicable, we see what the greater agenda is, they want the extinction of a good portion of humanity, through nuclear war, through starvation, through sterilization

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