The GOP: drawing the line on abortion
There was an interesting discussion in yesterday’s post on the election in Wisconsin, and how abortion law in the state may have influenced it. Here’s one of the comments, from “Frederick”:
If it’s abortion to blame (for the victory of the “progressive” Supreme Court candidate in Wisconsin), 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?
What does it mean for the GOP to “give up” opposition to abortion? The GOP has long been split on the subject between moderates who would draw the line at a number of different points, and absolutists who would allow zero abortion. This is not new, and it is a subset of a more basic dilemma in the party, one I’ve written about many times before: the difficulty of reconciling the wings of the Republican Party.
And I think that most GOP voters already trust that the party will sell out on something or other. That ship has already sailed.
I suppose some Republicans have campaigned on advocating total bans such as the one in the 1849 Wisconsin law under discussion in that previous post – but most have not. So a total ban is the position of only a certain proportion (and not a large one) of Republicans running for office. The far more common position of GOP candidates over the years has been to want to repeal Roe and leave the decision about abortion to the individual states. If I’d had to state the over-arching GOP position in recent years, I would have said it was that. Now that Roe has been overturned, that point of relative unity is gone, and the differences in opinion as to where to draw the line come out. But if Republican opposition to Roe meant anything, consistency would indicate that the decision should still be left to the states. That means that a few of the reddest states will probably have a complete ban, many blue states will have almost no restrictions, and all the other states will fall in-between.
The vast majority of Americans in both parties do not favor total bans on abortion. 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.
That highlights the dilemma right there. Complete bans on abortion will almost certainly lose elections except perhaps in the reddest of states. Complete bans give the left an extremely visible and emotional campaign issue, as apparently occurred in Wisconsin. But then there’s that remainder of the Republican Party. If they are against any abortion under any circumstance, and the issue means a great deal to them, will they stay home and not vote if there is compromise from the GOP on abortion? If so, that would also lead to a GOP loss. And so either way you have a loss, and of course abortion is hardly the only issue that differentiates right from left.
Commenter “Turtler” observed: “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.”
But actually, in this case, I believe it is one way (of many) 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 pretty much insane – or perhaps he was so insane that he was noble.
Those who insist on total and complete abortion bans are noble (and not insane) in the sense that they remain faithful to an ideal. However, they lose sight of (or perhaps don’t care as much about about) the practical consequence of their actions, which is the opposite of what they intend. And they won’t listen to the Sancho Panzas on the right who suggest compromise, perhaps because the noble ones are less interested in practical results in this world and more interested in keeping their own moral hands clean.
The way I see it, compromise is necessary because the culture does not support a total ban on abortion. I’ve written a great deal on the subject, and one of my points is that abortion was already fairly common prior to its legalization at the federal level by Roe. The way to make it less common in the future is not to back unpopular total bans that will never become law in most cases but will instead enable the empowerment of the left. The way forward is to change the culture so that abortion is less favored as a solution to unwanted pregnancy.
I don’t know how to do that, but I strongly believe that is the only answer. What Breitbart said remains true: Politics is downstream from culture.
[NOTE: Please see this previous post of mine.]
The decision process for Roe was wrong in nearly every way it is possible to be wrong; those arguing “the people should decide” were, and are, correct. How “the people” register and enforce their choice should be firmly rooted in the democratically representative process, and subject to all the arguing, wrangling, pleading and tooth-gnashing that’s fundamental to that process.
Will “the people” reach the correct decision? I doubt there is such a thing with this particular topic, because it will turn out to be various flavors of compromise, certainly varying among the states, almost certainly leaving everyone dissatisfied to degrees; when both sides wind up equally unhappy that’s usually a sign of a reasonably decent compromise. That said, I suspect that no matter what, it will be a deeply contentious issue for, probably, forever.
It was a good, if terribly late, decision by SCOTUS to put it in the hands of the citizens of the several states, and now, at least, it’s “in the hands of the people.” We shall see what becomes of it and try to stay out of schrapnel range.
I don’t think it’s going to matter all that much what position the Republican Party ends up taking on abortion.
The media is simply going to make their own position and attribute it to all Republicans anyway, like they currently do with racism, misogyny, and homophobia.
But I think the logic I outlined in the other thread is why Republicans have not created compromise positions on abortion in the states they control, now that Roe v Wade is set aside.
The Democratic Party is in a similar position with its own rhetoric: they have long demonized any effective abortion restriction before birth as patriarchy and misogyny, and they can’t climb down either.
Part of the problem I think, is that when Roe v. Wade was overturned it left some states like Wisconsin with their previously extreme abortion laws in place still on the books. This made abortion the main issue for 2022 in many states. Here in Michigan it resulted in not only the egregious Whitmer being re-elected, but also the democrats flipping both houses. In addition it resulted in abortion right up until the moment of birth being not only being legalized, but actually enshrined in the Michigan state constitution by Proposition 3.
The only positive I can see is that as cavendish noted, although Roe was wrongly decided, at least the issue is now “in the hands of the people” and there will be time for the people themselves to decide by 2024.
Well, let us all stand back while the wave of secular materialism washes religious and moral considerations aside. “A woman has the right to kill her unborn child by abortion”. It is not murder, it is HER RIGHT!
Most Americans practice secular materialism, with increasing vulgarity. They are my fellow citizens, but they rarely if ever use their brains for higher reasoning and philosophic purposes. They are thus Dodos. What happens to church attendance on SuperBowl Sunday? It drops even further than the established low attendance. Thus it is deemed more important to watch the teams, 75% black NFL teams, physically assault one another, as if we lived in Godless SubSaharan Africa as members of opposing tribes.
This all began in the 1960s!
CO is an Abortion on demand up to birth. Maybe even during, I don’t know. I am not pro or anti but I believe there should be a point where it is not allowed. Not sure just where. I would think that woman that has been carrying a babe for 4 or 5 months should know if the baby is developmentally compromised.
I want to sidestep the partisan Dem-Rep politics. Let us address the MEDICAL ethics of abortion. Abortion is the most corrosive thing burning out a hole where our hearts used to be.
A physician’s Hippocratic oath dictates: first do no harm.
An OB-GYN doctor wears two hats.
A Gynecologist has one patient, a woman. The obligation is to further that patient’s health and work toward the outcomes that sustain her health.
An Obstetrician, however, has two patients: a prospective mother and a prospective child. Both are patients, both bring an obligation to each patient. The obligation is equal.
When a pregnancy arises and the prospective mother wants that baby, intends to have that baby, yearns for that baby deep in the marrow of her bones, the interest of the mother and and the interest of the baby are in harmony. All is good. The mother will protect that baby ferociously. Sometimes the mother will protect that baby even at the medical risk of her own life.
When the prospective mother does not want that baby is when disharmony arises, when the interests of the mother are in conflict with the interests of the baby. Those conflicting interests are irreconcilable differences. The mother has the ability to legally advocate on her own behalf. The baby, unable to be it’s own advocate, has no legal advocate to speak on it’s behalf.
Why does the baby not get a guardian ad litem?
I am ‘pro choice’. The most difficult decision imaginable is to be forced to choose between the life of the mother/wife and the life of her child. I make no judgement there. That is between the parents and the doctor.
‘Pro choice”. That term is disingenuous with regard to the abortion rhetoric.
The moment of choice is when one chooses to engage in reproductive behavior. Abortion after consensual sexual copulation amounts to regret for the natural consequences of the procreative act. It is not like a carnival ride where you stagger of, dizzy, and throw up afterwards. Sometimes new life is created. A miracle of creation.
Aborting a baby is not like squeezing a pimple. Pimples don’t laugh and cry.
Keep it zipped or change the diapers.
I saw the results of illegal abortions as a student and an intern. One case I remember was the girlfriend of a UCLA medical student. He had used liquid green soap as an attempt to induce an abortion. That was not the only case I saw with green soap. It is devastating. It causes massive hemolysis. I wanted to call the dean at UCLA and tell him. It made me pro-choice but only 1st trimester. The 15 week limit would be fine. Republicans have for years tried to get birth control pills made over-the-counter. Democrats have opposed this. The abortion industry relies on the sale of fetal parts from older fetuses. 15 week fetuses do not have salable parts.
Richard G:
The life of the pregnant mother is rarely in danger.That is “pro-choice” pablum and can be addressed legislatively. In 2021, per CDC, 1200 total women died in/of pregnancy in the entire USA. The leading causes of death were severe bleeding (treatable!), infections, usually post-partum (treatable!) and eclampsia/pre-eclampsia (treatable!).
The life of the soon-to-be-aborted infant is 100% endangered. Abortions have murdered over 60 MILLION preborn American citizens since Roe in 1973.
Some of us no longer wonder why the USA is going down the toilet. It is a protracted national suicide.
Sarah Hoyt considers the abortion discussion as a “squirrel!” to distract from election fraud:
____________________________________
Yesterday at Power Line (Yeah, I know. Note I rarely link them anymore) I found myself reading a baffling article in which they talked of how Chicago and Wisconsin and whatever the other race was had gone left, and analyzing the causes. As if causes beyond “the vote is rigged” made any sense. [Powerline] immediately fell into line with the big megaphone of the left, and accused those “agitating against abortion” of being guilty for the losses. Which frankly is why the left keeps agitating for abortion. Not because it’s an immensely popular topic or that the right talks about it much, after being quietly glad the national mandate was overturned, but because it gives them coverage for the massive, rank, obvious fraud.
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/04/06/reading-pravda-in-english/
So a friend of mine has a daughter in the city. Chicago, that is. Typical 20-something. He told me of the following conversation.
So who’d you vote for?
Brandon Johnson
Why?
Vallas is against abortion.
What are you gonna do?
huxley:
And I think that anyone who thinks the abortion issue is not real and also important is making an enormous error. “It’s election fraud!” has become the all-purpose excuse for every loss. By thinking that way, the actual issues are ignored. It’s not that election fraud doesn’t exist – in Chicago in particular, it has a long history. But so do issues, and they matter whether or not fraud exists. Abortion is an issue that especially matters to women and particularly to younger women. That is reality, and laws such as the one in Wisconsin are supported by almost no one and opposed by almost everyone. Why would that not be reflected in voting behavior? The Democrat judge in Wisconsin beat the Republican one by 10 points. I doubt that was just because of fraud. But fraud is a convenient excuse.
Three questions for Mike K (because he’s an MD):
It looks like the abortion controversy has now affected the FDA’s approval process in regard to mifepristone, a drug used together with misoprostol to induce first- and second-trimester medical (as distinct from surgical) abortions. “Future access to the most commonly used abortion method in the country was in limbo Friday following conflicting federal court rulings issued minutes apart over the legality of abortion pill mifepristone, which has been FDA-approved for more than two decades. . . . While courts have long deferred to the FDA on issues of drug safety and effectiveness, the agency has found itself in uncharted waters in a post-Roe country in which abortions are banned or unavailable in 14 states, while 16 states have laws specifically targeting abortion medications. . . . In February, 20 Republican state attorneys general wrote to Walgreens threatening legal consequences if Walgreens provided mifepristone to consumers in their pharmacies across the country.”
https://nypost.com/2023/04/07/judge-halts-fda-approval-of-abortion-pill-mifepristone/
Questions: 1) Did you have any experience with medically induced abortions while you were still in practice? 2) Is the article correct that medical induction of abortion is “the most commonly used abortion method in the country”? 3) What is your opinion of the tug of war between the courts/attorneys general and the FDA?
I’m not trying to put you on the spot in any way; I’d honestly like to know what a licensed medical professional (rather than a journalist) has to say about the issue.
Re: Sarah Hoyt / Abortion / Election fraud
neo:
I enjoy reading Hoyt. She’s bright, engaging and embraces Grandmaster Heinlein’s contrarian streak. (How we miss him!)
With her I can never tell whether I’m reading a well-thought-out position or her latest brainwave that won’t last the next dawn. Some of the charm. She’s clearly a Writer on the Run.
That passage is a stone in an overarching claim that to large extent we exist in media-manufactured reality … and how to tell the difference with real reality.
I agree with that and also with you that abortion is real and matters as an issue. I was intrigued by her notion that abortion may also function as a meta-issue used by the left for the purpose of distraction.
I’m still digesting her larger take. The link again:
https://accordingtohoyt.com/2023/04/06/reading-pravda-in-english/
huxley:
I like to read Sarah’s stuff, too.
I think the answer is that abortion is “all of the above.” Both a real issue and a distraction. As both, it’s very very useful to the left.
And election fraud is also a real issue and a distraction.
Is the recent effect the abortion issue has had on elections necessarily a shift that will effect the balance of future elections? Has a new source of liberal voters emerged– or is this just a short-term spike? Or will these voters become reliable fodder for ballot harvesting in future elections?
This issue puts conservatives at a disadvantage. Some issues can’t be finessed.
Another problem is the total lack of critical thinking skills by the average American, making them incredibly susceptible to the barrage of media propaganda.
Maybe we’re just starting to see the results of a generations struggle to free the media from any constraint to the idea of a neutral press.
If Republicans will support only total abortion bans, they’ll simply lose elections until they no longer have any impact on abortion policy at all. The same might be true of Democrats who will support only abortion on demand through the moment of birth. If many states enact laws limiting abortion to some early stage of pregnancy, somewhere between 8 and 12 weeks at most, we’ll prevent most of the abortions that shock the conscience the worst. Many of us would prefer preventing all abortions, but that’s not an option that’s available, and chasing it too rigidly will only mean more abortions. It’s a compromise, not because anti-abortion voters think it’s OK, but because these policies are decided in part by popular votes, and the voters in general are deeply divided on this issue.
All the Supreme Court said was that the Constitution doesn’t guarantee the right to an abortion. They didn’t say the Constitution guarantees the life of an unborn child, or the right of anti-abortion voters to impose their judgement regarding this issue on pro-abortion voters.
@Mike K: That was not the only case I saw with green soap. It is devastating. It causes massive hemolysis. I wanted to call the dean at UCLA and tell him. It made me pro-choice but only 1st trimester.
If someone bungles a poisoning of a small child or an old person, should we make those killings also legal?
I’m not asking because I think all abortions should always be illegal, I’m asking you to think through the logic you use for your position.
Wendy Laubach:
But then the left had someone willing to attempt to murder a SCOTUS justice to ensure a pro-abortion ruling for the entire country and leftist trans-militants are willing to kill for whatever. So yeah it is just a case of imposing one’s judgement. (sarc)
Where is the uproar about abortion at birth? Not one damn word from anywhere about that. Again I would rather the country collapse than retreat from, at most, abortion at six weeks. The whole game is rigged and we kill literal infants an mutilate children. If this is what the American voter wants you can have them. Talking about the culture is pretty useless since the left controls the culture.
In my view the American voter is the issue and we will ride this (rise of utilitarianism) to the end.
Mike Plaise. Prime example of the “American voter”. She will suffer the consequences of her decision when she is a prisoner of her home due to crime. I lived in Chicago for ten years. A better example could not be found of the most brainless voters in the galaxy.
Personally, I’ve never been opposed to abortion in and of itself.
What I’m fundamentally opposed to is having it covered by the taxpayer EXCEPT for medical emergencies and rape.
So if you get yourself knocked up and want to “get rid of the thing”, pay for it yourself.
If you’re pregnant and you’re having serious enough complications that not having an abortion will leave you dead or seriously disabled, or if you got pregnant as a result of rape and have the police report to show you’ve indeed been raped in the timeframe you would have gotten pregnant, I’ve no problem with you getting an abortion covered by taxpayer funded insurance if you can’t pay for it through your own insurance (heck, I’d bill it to the rapist if he is known and convicted).
In all other cases, like with other vanity procedures like a butt lift, pay for it yourself.
The abortion issue seems to separate people into three categories: it’s murder; it’s not murder; and maybe it’s murder, but I’m okay with it. A way of kicking the can down the road is to say we should let the states decide, rather than come to a national consensus.
Why is this polarizing, emotional, and moral issue different from slavery? Why didn’t we compromise and simply let states that chose to allow slavery alone, and likewise for those that chose to abolish it? Paraphrasing the pro-abortion mantra “If you don’t like slavery, don’t own any.” Are we willing to engage in Civil War 2.0 over the issue? Is splitting the nation over the issue a viable solution?
The question is does morality belong in the political sphere?
Windbag:
I think the problem with “If you don’t like slavery, don’t own any,” is self-evident. Owning a slave should not be a personal choice, because the that choice violates the rights of another person. Abortion does the same thing.
I’m an abortion absolutist, in the sense that I think that every abortion wrongly ends the life of an innocent human being. However, I also understand that it is better to accomplish some good rather than no good. If a ship sinks and a hundred people are left drowning in the water, and I have the ability to save ten of them, I need to save the ten. In the same way, if I can get a law passed that will save ten percent of the children lost to abortion, but any law that would save more would not pass, then I will work for the ten percent. When more people agree with me, I can get a low passed that will save twenty, or fifty, or ninety, or a hundred percent, but in the meantime I have to save the lives I can save now. As a matter of doing the most good possible, I will support a law that forbids abortion after fifteen weeks if that’s the most the people are prepared to accept now. If I didn’t, I’d be allowing people to die just so that I could show off the purity of my morals. Personally, showing off how good a person I am just isn’t that important to me.
Topo Gigio
That was excellent!
we really don’t want to grapple with what we’re facing, the return of the old gods, why make men and women who are confused about their identity, so they cannot reproduce, why make them look toward a secular apocalypse so you can control them, why make the power grid, our supply chains, more brittle, so there will be less abundance, thats the holy writ of esg, because gaia cries in pain, and theres one solution to that, and it’s keyed around 2030,
The reason abortion is hard to compromise is that simple and clear-cut moral principles don’t allow for compromise positions. If it’s a baby from conception that’s simple and can’t be compromised, or you’re enabling the killing of babies. If a woman has absolute autonomy over her own body, that too is simple and can’t be compromised, or you’re enabling the violation of a woman’s autonomy over her own body.
I don’t say that the principles are of equal value, or equally right, or whatever; I’m saying their equal in that they are simple to articulate and impossible to compromise. You can’t really compromise on abortion if you’ve embraced either of those principles.
It’s not done because it’s hard to do. It’s been made harder by five decades of cynical politicians and fundraising.
Questions: 1) Did you have any experience with medically induced abortions while you were still in practice? 2) Is the article correct that medical induction of abortion is “the most commonly used abortion method in the country”? 3) What is your opinion of the tug of war between the courts/attorneys general and the FDA?
Good questions. I have no experience or knowledge about “medical abortions.” I have no idea why the judge ruled that way. The Supremes left a sensible alternative to Roe in place. 15 weeks sounds like a reasonable compromise to me. The state Republican legislatures seem determined to go down with the ship on abortion. This is exactly the kind of issue the Democrats love. All emotion.
Frederick on April 9, 2023 at 12:10 pm said:
The reason abortion is hard to compromise is that simple and clear-cut moral principles don’t allow for compromise positions. If it’s a baby from conception that’s simple and can’t be compromised, or you’re enabling the killing of babies
Someone on the left several years ago published a sensible statement on the morals. She wrote that abortion should be legal but the mother should acknowledge that she is killing the fetus. The hypocrisy of pretending the fetus is “just a clump of cells” is part of the problem of morality.
There was an astonishing article in the NY Times a few years ago. The writer wrote about his girlfriend’s abortion, of all things. The night before she was go into the abortion clinic they had a sort of celebratory dinner. She declined to have wine “because it might hurt the baby.” The evening before she was to have an abortion.
If someone bungles a poisoning of a small child or an old person, should we make those killings also legal?
I’m not asking because I think all abortions should always be illegal, I’m asking you to think through the logic you use for your position.
My point was that liquid green soap is lethal when used for abortion. That a medical student would do that was entering a different circle of hell.
Phisohex antibacterial scrub? Abortion, manslaughter; unintended consequences of an oath not heeded.
Now unheeded for the current gender madness.
Part of the problem is that Mississippi and Missouri abortion laws tend to motivate the left in swing states, but CA and NY abortion laws really don’t bring out the pro-life vote in those same swing states (or at least not enough to counter the pro-abortion vote). That’s a shame. Folks should mind their own business. If Mississippi wants to ban abortion, that’s the business of Mississippi, not Michigan, etc., but that’s not the way it works out.
The electoral lesson might be that swing state R’s need to be very unambiguous about where they stand on abortion. I suspect that promoting 12-15 week bans with clear exceptions for rape, incest, and serious bodily harm, and strong conscience protections can probably either command a majority or neutralize abortion as an issue in most swing states. We pro-lifers need to accept that, with our polity as presently constituted, that may be the best we can get. The alternative to the compromise position is not a total ban. Total bans are not possible in all but the reddists states. Pushing for total bans or heartbeat rules outside of the reddist states is not going to succeed, it’s just going to lead to the wild west abortion rules that they now have in Michigan, with all of the other “joys” of progressive governance as an added “bonus.”
I think using abortion to draw out voters to put liberals in office is a type of once and done event. What will drive the crazy feminist college girls to vote after they have burned and scorced the earth with this issue.
Thanks to them ,we have in my state, the despicable govenor leading the trifecta of haridans once again.
When these same passionate pro-aborts are in their 30’s, having suffered infertility or miscarriages or stillbiths, will they understand how wrong their prior beliefs were?
I support a ban on abortion past 15 weeks, and not because it is a convenient political compromise, but because I can make a coherent moral argument.
Abortion becomes a moral conflict when it kills a baby. The counter argument is that it’s “just a clump of cells”.
The key here (for me) is human life. I have no compunction at ending other-than-human life, nor do most people, definitely not the 7 people around our Easter dinner which featured a nice juicy ham.
Short version: Q – What distinguished humans from animals? A – Our brains. Therefore the clump of cells becomes human when an EEG can detect human brain waves, which turns out to be between 14 and 16 weeks.
I am not a huge Lindsey Graham fan, but when Dobbs came out he proposed a federal law making abortion legal up to 15 weeks (I believe), He was roundly criticized by both pro and anti abortion commentators, for trying to “federalize” the issue, for giving in to the pro-abortion side and opening the “slippery slope” gates, for seeking to limit womens’ right to choose, etc.
I am of the opinion that Graham never expected his proposal to pass; he was putting it out there as a political life raft for Republican politicians to cling to. “It’s up to the states” or “it’s up to the voters” was never going to work as a political position for national politicians.
On the other hand, the funding of national politicians seems to depend on the issue not being compromised.
The GOP needs to moderate on abortion. Make it legal up to 15 – 18 weeks and after that only if the life of the mother is in danger. An absolutist position on abortion is politcial suicide. It was Nixon who made abortion a litmus test for Republican candidates -a bad idea!!
The GOP needs to moderate on abortion.
==
It doesn’t.
Put me in the abortion absolutist camp that will not vote for a pro-choice Republican or run with a Republican platform that discards protection of the unborn. There is a God of the Bible or not. Murder in the womb as policy with the progressive advancement of chopping off children’s sex organs and throwing them in the trash is anathema to the God I serve first and foremost. The beating heart, 6 weeks, is my marker for the Godless who make claims for science and humanity. That will never fly for the Leftists that are in power, running the show and have captured the generations that are deciding local and national elections. Our recent history of Republican Congresses that haven’t established a budget (generational theft), secured our border, work with Trump on conservative issues so he didn’t have to advance Executive Orders that were easily and immediately dismantled, failed to come to the aid of the J6 Reichstag Fire victims and on and on are unimpressive to me to set aside what I consider the most important issue of our Republic in the sight of God.
Art Deco
“The GOP needs to moderate on abortion.
==
It doesn’t.”
Yes it does. Otherwise continue to lose elecetion after election.
Sharon W
Abortion will never be banned in the way you want it to be.
@Brooklyn Boy:Otherwise continue to lose elecetion after election.
Most people who vote Republican are not doing it so that we can have more people labeled ‘R’ in office. Most are doing it because they want to see meaningful change. When they see Republicans sell out, they stop voting for them. They want a choice, not an echo.
I suppose there’s a moral imperative someplace where the best is the enemy of the good and only the best is morally defensible, despite its precluding the good.
Abortion isn’t it.
Yes it does. Otherwise continue to lose elecetion after election.
==
You’ve confused your policy preference for the gift of prophecy. Stuff it.
Art Deco:
Dispense with the “stuff it” part. It is gratuitously insulting as well as dictatorial.
Frederick:
People on the right who sit out elections are also making a choice – and that choice is to help elect the Democrat.
@neo: that choice is to help elect the Democrat.
Rational from their perspective, because they don’t think “helping the Democrat” makes any difference in the end. (And an appeal to “don’t help the Democrat” is the same argument conservatives reject for why African-Americans should continue to vote Democrat.)
I understand that you think differently, and I don’t say it’s wrong. But the “binary choice” argument doesn’t work on people who aren’t seeing that Voting Harder is going to help.
And of course quite a few commenters here are fine with sitting out “helping the Democrat” if it means having to vote for Trump, so you already know that even here that argument persuades no one.
The Democrats of course are helping themselves to elections anyway, since they dominate the process of administering elections.
Fixing what’s wrong is simply going to take far more than tweaking the GOP platform. Discussing how to compromise on the killing of babies, which is how the GOP spent 50 years defining the issue and fundraising from it, is (I’m convinced) a distraction from actually working to fix what’s wrong.
This distraction is highly convenient to those who benefit from how things work now, many of whom are Republicans in entrenched red states.
Folks, when I was a surgery resident in 1969, abortion was legal in California. That was well before Roe. It required a psych consult, as I recall, and approval was based on the mental health of the mother. For a time, the OBGYN residents were obliged to do them and they hated it. When I rotated through GYN I did a few. Eventually, the County Hospital hired some docs that were willing to do abortions all day and the OB residents went back to doing things they wanted to do
The problem with morality-based bans is that we do other things that offend our conscience. The Army and Air Force rely on people who are willing to kill. Some of them hate it. In WWII the Army historians found that only about 20% of soldiers fired their rifles. The Air Corps reported that 25% of fighter pilots made 90% of the kills of enemy aircraft. My cousin was a bombardier in a B 17. He made 50 missions. No doubt he killed a lot of people.
@Mike K:The problem with morality-based bans is that we do other things that offend our conscience.
I don’t think you intend to argue for all killing being legal just because some killing is. But that is what you have done, if you can’t explicate a principle for why some kinds of killing are different and should still be illegal despite being historically and enthusiastically practiced by large numbers of people.
The pro-life absolutists have done so quite simply and succinctly, and the abortion-on-demand absolutists have done so quite simply and succinctly, but the people who want to compromise have not, and that’s because it’s very difficult. I don’t think it helps anyone to not acknowledge how hard this is to do.
Frederick:
The argument certainly DOES persuade some people. Plenty of people who would prefer that abortion be totally illegal understand and accept the argument that sticking to only candidates who advocate a complete ban is a good way to increase the amount of abortion and to make late-term abortions legal, by allowing the election of leftist Democrats advocating that position. And therefore they are willing to vote for the compromise candidate.
It’s not a difficult concept.
Those who will not do that are the ones who are unpersuaded. But that doesn’t mean no one is persuaded.
Those who are unpersuaded fit the description I gave in my post:
Incidentally we might want to retire the “if you don’t vote you help the Democrats” quite aside from its ineffectiveness, because it’s mathematically fallacious*. Withholding support from a party in order to extract concessions from it has a long and effective history. There are any number of constituencies successfully doing this in America today, quite aside from foreign countries and quite aside from the past.
Dems understand perfectly well that they can’t win elections without ethnic minorities and weird progressive factions and they buy off them off all the time. This is how the Left has always been getting its way, and why a tiny sliver of the electorate now gets to destroy womens’ sports and restrooms. Funny, isn’t it, that the Republican party just says to vote harder or you won’t ever get that half-a-loaf, what are you gonna do vote for the Dems?
*By voting I either add 1 to the D total, add 1 to the R total, or add 0 to either. If not adding to one side is the same as helping the other side, both can equally say I have helped the other side to exactly the same degree. Since the winner is whoever has more net votes, I change that net by nothing if I don’t vote for one or the other–I have helped the Ds exactly as much as I have helped the Rs, which is to say not at all.
i think michigan and wisconsin, are not good test cases, because of previous patterns of behavior, we have to look at all the variables, in kansas we know how even restatement of dodd decision was framed as an extreme act,
@neo:And therefore they are willing to vote for the compromise candidate.
It’s not a difficult concept.
Neither is it difficult to understand when a compromise costs more votes than it gains. After all, the Left is not compromising on abortion one whit and according to the media narrative is doing well. We’re always hearing that abortion-up-to-birth is so unpopular, and yet they are not moderating their position at all, they are writing into state constitutions.
And you are not going to see the media treat abortion-on-demand-up-to-fifteen-weeks as a reasonable compromise in any event. We know because this already happened more times than we can count. Every time a red state restricted abortion in any way no matter how moderately.
There’s any number of issues where the Dems don’t compromise but get their way. For some reason it’s always the Right that has to moderate and compromise. Funny how that works.
Frederick:
You may not accept the argument that says it should be legal to kill an under-15-week-old fetus because it is not a fully-formed and autonomous human being yet, but only a potential one that has not yet taken on fully human characteristics and is 100% inside the mother’s body. But I find it hard to believe that you don’t conceptually understand that that is the position being argued by many advocates of abortion up to that point.
Frederick
“Most people who vote Republican are not doing it so that we can have more people labeled ‘R’ in office. Most are doing it because they want to see meaningful change. When they see Republicans sell out, they stop voting for them. They want a choice, not an echo.”
You do what is necessary to win and being slightly more flexible on abortion (particulalry with rape, health of the mother, and incest) is not selling out. That is why Democrats sadly are winners and Republicans are sadly are losers. Even the odious (to me) Anne Coulter recently wrote that the abortion issue is an albatross around the Republican Party.
@neo:You may not accept the argument
I have not stated my position on where to draw the line on abortion, and you don’t know which arguments I personally accept or don’t.
But I find it hard to believe that you don’t conceptually understand that that is the position being argued by many advocates of abortion up to that point.
I do understand the argument. The fifteen-week-line is arbitrary, just as the age of majority is arbitrary. An arbitrary line is not set by a clear and simple moral principle. Violating an arbitrary line might be illegal but wouldn’t be morally wrong.
If you want to rest abortion on things that are not moral principles that’s fine. Lots of people, as you point out, do. Lots of laws work that way.
But to do so with abortion comes with a big problem, what to do with all the people who ARE using very clear and simple principles to address abortion, and their outsized power and influence in each party.
You might as well expect the Republicans to cave on the Second Amendment as on abortion, and still expect to survive. Of course that’s what will be demanded next. It’s always the Right whose leadership says it has to give things up.
@Brooklyn Boy:You do what is necessary to win and being slightly more flexible on abortion (particulalry with rape, health of the mother, and incest) is not selling out.
You do what is necessary to win and being slightly more flexible on gun rights (particulalry with assault weapons, or anything not needed to hunt) is not selling out.
You do what is necessary to win and being slightly more flexible on trans issues (particulalry with women’s sports and restrooms) is not selling out.
What’s all this “winning” for? So we can look from the R’s to the D’s, and the D’s to the R’s, and be unable to tell the difference?
That is why Democrats sadly are winners and Republicans are sadly are losers.
Yeah, because THE DEMOCRATS are being so flexible on these issues? Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it.
Mike K said, “The Army and Air Force rely on people who are willing to kill. Some of them hate it. In WWII the Army historians found that only about 20% of soldiers fired their rifles.” 1) I’m surprised you left out the Marine Corps as “people who are willing to kill” (just kidding). 2) About the 80% of WWII soldiers who did not fire their rifles (outside of training, I assume): I’ve mentioned here before that my dad was a paratrooper (82nd Airborne) during the war. His Army buddy gave him a personalized beer mug in the early 1960s with the 82nd’s insignia on the body of the mug and my dad’s nickname–“Killer”– on the band below the rim. I was really surprised because my dad had always been an easygoing guy, and I asked the buddy why my dad got that nickname. He laughed and said, “Because the only thing your dad ever killed was bottles of beer,” and added that “dead soldier” is a slang term for an empty beer or whiskey bottle.
BTW– Thank you for answering my question above about medication-induced abortion. Your account of the medical student who used green soap to induce an abortion is a real horror story.
The S L A Marshal BS 20% statistic never dies.
The 80% of combat infantry just threw away their ammo or relied on bayonets or prayers.
Frederick:
If you define everything that is not the right as the left, and I suppose that then you might indeed think that the left never compromises. But I assure you that radical leftists compromise all the time. They are willing to be practical and vote for the Democrat rather than the Republican, even though the Democrat isn’t advocating the degree of extremism they would prefer.
Mike K. My father was an Infantry platoon leader, occasional company commander until they could find another captain, in Europe. He says it was 100%.
The most quoted source for that is SLA Marshall, whose notes for that particular issue are lost.
The guys shooting rifles are the Infantry. The other guys shoot cannon, drive trucks, build roads, so forth.
So, yeah, maybe only 20% shoot their rifles, but, as my father said, it’s 100% of the guys who are supposed to be shooting rifles.
Some fighter pilots are better than others. SURprise. Usually, they fought in elements, leader and wingman. Leader made the approach depending on wingman to cover him against other threats, and took the shot. Wingman didn’t get a shot. Not because he was reluctant..
Some try to make the same case by pointing out all the rifles recovered after a Civil War battle. Almost all were loaded, presumably because the guy got shot after loading it. Not because he was reluctant. If you’re reluctant, you can fire high and your buddies won’t know you’re betraying them, possibly to their deaths.
It’s not the same as killing defenseless babies
Frederick:
You write, “Incidentally we might want to retire the ‘if you don’t vote you help the Democrats quite aside from its ineffectiveness, because it’s mathematically fallacious*.”
In order to explain that, you add:
Your argument seems nonsensical to me. It seems to rest on a rigid definition of the word “help.” Obviously, votes are not measured against some threshold for victory. They are measured against the total for the candidate of the other party (in a basically 2-party system). Therefore, if 100 people on the right don’t vote for the GOP candidate, and the GOP candidate loses by anything under 100 votes, those people have helped the Democrat to win. If they don’t want the Democrat to win, then vote for the Republican. If they don’t care who wins, then don’t vote. But yes, if a person on the right doesn’t vote for the Republican, it helps the Democrat to win.
Frederick:
And if you really can’t tell the difference between the policies of Democrats and those of Republicans, then you’re not paying attention.
You may not think there’s enough difference. But they are indeed different.
I have been hearing arguments like yours over and over in the years I’ve been blogging, and they have never made sense to me and still don’t.
Frederick:
You write:
Exactly. That is what the word MAY means, and that is why I used it.
Duh.
@neo:They are willing to be practical and vote for the Democrat rather than the Republican, even though the Democrat isn’t advocating the degree of extremism they would prefer.
In my experience, when they do this, it’s because they believe that the Democrat secretly agrees with them and is just keeping quiet about it. (This was the most common answer I got when I asked people why they voted for Obama if he opposed same-sex marriage.) The media makes it very easy for Democrats to get away with this.
In my experience, they also know that these Democrats might say they are opposed to something but won’t actually vote against it if it comes up for a vote. In May 2022 only Manchin voted against establishing Roe v Wade in the Senate. (He’s got a promising future in the Democratic party, lol). Bob Casey, supposedly a pro-life Dem, voted for it even though it was much more liberal than restrictions he’d previously voted for*. The ratchet only goes one way, you see.
*The younger Casey is one of the most conservative Democrats on abortion rights, previously backing a ban on terminations performed after 20 weeks. He voted earlier this year to start debate on the Women’s Health Protection Act, but he didn’t commit at the time to supporting the bill itself.
Casey voted Wednesday to advance the abortion rights legislation after saying on Tuesday that he would support codifying Roe if the measure came to a final vote. He noted Tuesday that “the circumstances around the entire debate on abortion have changed” since the Senate last considered an abortion rights bill, citing the threat of a “categorical ban on abortion” if the GOP takes power after Roe is overturned.
@neo:Your argument seems nonsensical to me. It seems to rest on a rigid definition of the word “help.”
No, it’s just based on addition and subtraction. Your vote can only add 1 to someone’s total and zero to everyone else’s, increasing that candidate’s margin by 1. Not voting increases no one’s margin, and reduces no one’s.
Therefore, if 100 people on the right don’t vote for the GOP candidate, and the GOP candidate loses by anything under 100 votes, those people have helped the Democrat to win.
Only if you assume that the GOP is logically entitled to the votes of all voters on the Right can you say this. This is exactly what I don’t believe. The Right does not exist to vote the GOP into office. In addition, what about people not on the Right or people on the Left? They don’t, in an honest election, get more than one vote either. All of them face the same choice, to vote for one candidate or for no one, and in all cases they either add zero votes to everyone’s total. Who are people in the middle “helping” by not voting? Each party can equally make the case that they are helping the other to the same degree, which can only be true if the help is equal to zero.
That is what the word MAY means, and that is why I used it. Duh.
If you’re really not assuming what I think, I’m sorry if I thought you did.
And if you really can’t tell the difference between the policies of Democrats and those of Republicans, then you’re not paying attention.
Since you said “if”, I’m to understand that you don’t actually assume I think this way, and your “then you’re not paying attention” is only intended to apply to me in that case, which you are not sure about?
I can confirm that I do understand the difference between the policies of Democrats and those of Republicans, and that I am paying attention.
I have been hearing arguments like yours over and over in the years I’ve been blogging, and they have never made sense to me and still don’t.
I can’t speak for people who may have said something that sounds like what I said, but in my case I suspect it’s because you and I don’t share the same premises. If we took the trouble to make the differences in the premises explicit, you might understand my position, though still not agree with it. It would be a lot of work, and if you’re not receptive to my conclusion, might not be effort you’d be willing to make. Which is fine, we all have the same number of hours in a day and we all have to prioritize.
Frederick:
Arguing with you has become silly, because of strawmen like this: “Only if you assume that the GOP is logically entitled to the votes of all voters on the Right can you say this.”
Absolutely incorrect. I am not assuming anything of the sort. I’m talking about voters on the right who are naturally more aligned with the stated policies of most Republicans compared to most Democrats. No one is entitled to anyone’s vote, but we’re talking about general ideological alignments in which a person might be expected in the natural course of things to vote for the person with whom he or she shares the most policy opinions.
I haven’t seen this mentioned, and it may be implicit in the abortion debate, but how many women are voting from the framework of ‘no one is going to tell me what to do with my body’?
Doesn’t that perspective demand the outcome be to the birth of the child or slightly beyond?
Which makes any compromise as to 15 weeks or 20 weeks irrelevant.
Is this the same cohort of women who won’t vote for someone like Trump?
@neo: No one is entitled to anyone’s vote, but we’re talking about general ideological alignments in which a person might be expected in the natural course of things to vote for the person with whom he or she shares the most policy opinions.
Fair enough. But it’s not just the number of issues that overlap, it’s also the weight and the degree, right? There are single-issue abortion voters, who would not align with any candidate that supported legal abortion regardless of party label, as there are those would not align with any candidate supporting an restriction on legal abortion regardless of party label. Same can be said for gun rights, etc.
One thing that follows from looking at it this way is that it’s simple enough to construct a GOP candidate that would be a deal-breaker for most of the right-leaning electorate in one way or another. In that case I’m not sure I’d blame the voters who stayed home for a D victory as much as I’d blame the party that didn’t understand the electorate. (I’d say our 2008 and 2012 presidential candidates are excellent examples…)
I’m pretty sure that an abortion compromise goes a long way to making a GOP candidate unelectable, and if there’s any wobbliness on other issues that the Right cares about, forget it.
I don’t say that this state of things is desirable, or that I personally want it that way. I’m just describing the situation as I see it.
If you actually count up the commenters here who have reacted forcefully to any Republican compromise on abortion, I think you’ll be able to tell that it’s probably not a slam-dunk vote getter to propose 15 or 20 or 12 weeks or whatever.
Globetrotter logic.
Frederick:
But that’s the point – “single issue” voters on the right whose single issue is abortion are ignoring two very important things that happen as a consequence. The first is that by not voting at all (and not for the Republican) they are making it more likely that the Democrat – who has even more extreme pro-abortion views than the Republican, and who will be voting with the group who is pushing for virtually unlimited abortion – wins and takes power. That is counter-productive in terms of abortion itself, the supposed “single issue” of that voter. Plus, the second that the voter is ignoring i all the other things that Democrats will do when in power, things that that same voter is against, many of which Republican would not be doing. So the person is enabling both unlimited abortion and a host of other things the person doesn’t want to happen.
That’s why I think single-issue voters are destructive to their own causes, when those causes have no chance of becoming law. In very red states, it’s a different story, but other than that, absolute abortion bans will not be enacted.
Brian E:
Many women consider the fetus to only be an extension of their body up to a certain point. As the age of viability outside the womb gets earlier and earlier, that point gets moved up to an earlier date in the pregnancy, for those women.
@neo:So the person is enabling both unlimited abortion and a host of other things the person doesn’t want to happen.
1: Your logic convinces you, but what I haven’t seen is that it convinces any of the people who are absolutists on abortion. It would be nice if some of them could explain their reasoning. It’s not like we don’t know who they are.
2: Is there any issue so important to you morally that you would reject this logic? Is there no line a Republican candidate for office couldn’t cross before you’d agree that you were indifferent to which candidate won? Support for Russia over Ukraine, Palestine over Israel, support for sharia law, 9/11 conspiracy theories, I don’t know, is there anything?
I don’t ask you to share the answer with me, just to honestly consider the question, and if the answer is “Yes there is a line the Republicans could cross that would mean I didn’t care who won”, then you might look at the logic behind that stance and ask yourself how you’d be argued out of it. And then try that with the pro-life absolutists here.
If the answer is “No there is no line the Republicans could cross, I would always vote for them over the Democrat if I could show the Democrat was a little worse in some way” then I think there are not many outside intense party loyalists who are in that position, and they don’t need to be argued into supporting their party.
Frederick:
Of course the argument won’t convince an “absolutist” on abortion. The definition of “absolutist” involves the person’s position against abortion under all circumstances as being non-negotiable and unchangeable. My point – and I believe I’ve already made it – is that there are people who are very strongly against abortion but who understand the practical argument and who will hold their noses and vote for the non-absolutist GOP candidate.
Frederick:
And to answer your other question – I cannot think of any ONE line that a candidate would cross that would make that person someone for whom I would not vote (unless it were something preposterous such as: “When I become president I will nuke the entire US”). It can only happen for me if the aggregate of the person’s positions is the same or worse than the aggregate of the opponent’s positions. Then I wouldn’t vote, or would vote for the Democrat.
However, in 2016 I did not vote for Trump. But that had nothing to do with any one stand he took on an issue. In fact, I agreed with most of his stands. But I felt that (a) he didn’t mean a word he said, so his policy positions were irrelevant; and (b) he would be a very dangerous loose cannon as president and might do something exceedingly reckless. During his presidency I was happy to discover that both of those suppositions of mine had been incorrect. I voted for him in 2020.
maybe this had more to do with it,
https://townhall.com/columnists/rachelalexander/2023/04/10/47-million-in-small-amounts-of-money-donated-to-democrats-apparently-without-the-donors-knowledge-n2621731
@neo: The definition of “absolutist” involves the person’s position against abortion under all circumstances as being non-negotiable and unchangeable.
But my definition of “absolutist” does not entail they won’t vote for a Republican who compromises. They might, if reached with an argument that acknowledges the issues they are facing in the way that they understand them.
The way you are arguing about this, neo, is similar to a trolley problem, though you might not intend it that way. They can either pull the lever or not pull the lever. If they pull the lever then some people may die, if they don’t pull the lever a larger number of people may die. It is a not a problem where there’s one obvious best answer. There is a school of ethics that would tell you there is an obvious best answer but people who think life begins at conception are relatively rare in that school.
I would suggest that the number of people who would say they’d prefer to see a baby die than X number of older kids, if they pull a lever, are very rare. For people that consider life to begin at conception they have exactly this problem but more aggravated.
I know for a fact that I don’t know how to address this in a way that most people on the Right would agree with.
It can only happen for me if the aggregate of the person’s positions is the same or worse than the aggregate of the opponent’s positions. Then I wouldn’t vote, or would vote for the Democrat.
Okay, but then the issues don’t all have equal weight do they? How do you decide that support for Palestine over Israel weighs more or less than support for abortion up to 15 weeks, when up against a Democrat who supports Israel over Palestine and abortion up to birth? Whatever issues resonate with you, feel free to substitute. I’d be surprised if there really are no such issues.
If there are, then please consider that some people are in this position with respect to abortion and that’s why the right thing to do is not obvious to them as it is with you. If there aren’t, it’s possible you don’t have enough premises in common to find a way to reach agreement with those people.
Mike K. One caveat to non-shooting GI. The Germans had flashless powder–not perfect but far better than ours. Firing in the dark with our ammo gave away one’s position pretty handily. So it’s possible a guy might not want to shoot until everybody’s shooting.
My father’s division, 104TH ID Timberwolves, trained very seriously for night work. Infiltrate, grenades, rifles at the last moment. They got the job done with remarkably few casualties. When I got to Benning some wars later, we started our night training block with after action reports from the 104th.
So if there were a reluctance to start shooting, it was practical, not moral. But that’s what sergeants are for.
Frederick:
Yes, it’s a form of the trolley problem. But more complex and convoluted, because the decision the voter makes can easily lead to the opposite result intended.
And no, there’s no one issue that overrides all others for me, unless it’s something preposterous like “I’m going to nuke the world.”
And the arguments of abortion absolutists still seem self-defeating to me. Nevertheless, I believe I understand their arguments. But it seems to me that even if you (not you personally, necessarily; but any “you”) believe that human life begins at conception, and if you are faced with two candidates, and the Republican supports abortion only in the first 15 weeks, and the Democrat supports abortion until the point of full-term birth, voting for the Republican leads to fewer babies being aborted, and at an earlier stage as well. Not voting for the Republican could enable the Democrat to win, and more fetuses will be aborted.
“Many women consider the fetus to only be an extension of their body up to a certain point. As the age of viability outside the womb gets earlier and earlier, that point gets moved up to an earlier date in the pregnancy, for those women.” – Neo
Neo, that’s just a rationalization. It’s human and unique.
Leaving that aside, and taking up the argument that the baby should gain rights at the time of viability or when the heartbeat can be detected, why are these women not applying their own moral judgements and voting against abortion bills that legalize abortion up to just before it would be infanticide?
I’ve struggled with this issue, and would support an exception for incest and rape– even though the baby is innocent of any offense, even in these cases– but these are rare.
As to allowing abortion for a period of time after conception, the New York Times reports: “Nearly nine in ten abortions occur in the first trimester of pregnancy in the United States, with nearly half of abortions happening in the first six weeks of pregnancy and nearly all occurring in the first trimester.”
@neo:But it seems to me that even if you… believe that human life begins at conception, and if you are faced with two candidates… not voting for the Republican could enable the Democrat to win, and more fetuses will be aborted.
And if you’re a utilitarian this is an argument that carries weight with you. There are lots of pro-life Christians that will not accept this reasoning, because their moral premises are different from the one underpinning this argument.
I don’t know what the argument might be that would reach them, for what it’s worth, and maybe there’s not enough of them that it’s net negative for the GOP if they sit out elections, but I’m skeptical that this is the case.
Frederick:
I am not a utilitarian and yet the argument carries weight with me, and I think it should carry weight with everyone.
OBVIOUSLY, it does not.
I believe this question already affected the election of the justice in Wisconsin and will lead to Wisconsin becoming a blue state or certainly more blue. It affected Wisconsin because of the Republican-controlled legislature’s failure to pass an abortion law to replace the 100% restrictive 1849 one.
And I don’t think there’s an argument that could reach the abortion absolutists. Was there an argument that could reach Don Quixote? I believe the motive of the absolutists is not practical at all. It is spiritual – keeping their own hands clean when they vote.
I can’t believe any of you people. How dare you call yourselves conservatives and then accept the murder of unborn children! Because that’s what abortion is. Life begins at conception (even the zygote has his own genetic code and everything, more distinct from either mother or father than an identical twin would be). Therefore killing an unborn child is morally equivalent to killing one after birth, and the abortion mills you support are nothing more than glorified concentration camps. That’s right, I’m saying you people are no better than Nazi supporters.
A mother is supposed to be willing to give her life for her child (fathers too), not go to a hit man to hack him to bits.
It’s not merely a religious thing as some are claiming. Whittaker Chambers and his wife (both Communists) decided against abortion because they couldn’t do that to a baby (they used the word “baby” and everything). Even the Communists you so despise have more morals than you.