Abortion

It's the culture, stupid. The economy no longer governs voters' choices. When I was making videos around the US to promote one of my books, the film crew that traveled with me consisted entirely of my fellow Hispanics. ‘We hate the fat cats,’ they said, as we chatted in our common language, ‘the real-life Gordon Gekkos, and the plutocrats who evade taxes and buy votes.’ I assumed they were Democratic voters. They responded in horror. ‘We vote Republican,’ they explained, ‘for our values.’ They meant they were against gay marriage, ‘trans’ Newspeak, cancel culture and, above all, abortion. Abortion is becoming America's political litmus test. To save babies, you vote Republican. If you value ‘choice’ above ‘life’, you vote Democrat.

A striking curiosity of American life is that the names of legal cases can insinuate themselves into everyday dialogue. None more so, of course, than Roe v Wade, the 1973 decision where a majority-liberal Supreme Court extracted from the Constitution’s protection of life, liberty and property a constitutional right to abortion: absolute in the first trimester, qualified in the second, and, in rare cases, even in the third. In a 1992 fine-tuning exercise, the rule was re-written as a right to abortion unless and until the foetus was viable at about 24 weeks. But the principle remains. Southern and rural states always saw Roe v Wade as a liberal aberration. Three years ago, Mississippi, where public opinion remains obstinately pro-life, threw down the gauntlet.

Being a somewhat old-fashioned person, Cockburn is skeptical of latter-day feminism and the utter sanctity of a woman’s right to choose. So it’s quite odd that he also feels compelled to defend progressive womanhood from Planned Parenthood, which quite unexpectedly has come out in favor of misogyny. ‘I’m the Head of Planned Parenthood. We’re Done Making Excuses for Our Founder,’ says the headline from current Planned Parenthood president Alexis McGill Johnson. The context is Planned Parenthood’s ongoing cancellation of Margaret Sanger over her support for ideas that are today unpopular, such as sterilization, eugenics, and freedom of speech.

Tulsi Gabbard will retire from Congress at the end of the year. The Hawaii representative is going out with a bang, introducing several bills that show why she is so despised by her establishment Democratic counterparts — and why she could potentially become a very powerful broker in the American political realignment. Last week, Gabbard introduced the Protect Women's Sports Act, legislation that would prevent biological men from competing in women's sports. Gabbard understands that keeping men and women's sports separate is a question of basic fairness for female athletes — Chelsea Mitchell, a high-school track runner, for example, has lost out on four state titles because she's had to compete against two individuals who were born male.

The abortion movement is facing a long overdue reckoning — and it's not the right’s fault. Trump’s anti-abortion assault may be powerful, but it's not why many pro-choice advocates are now questioning their morality.Trump’s nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett is the culmination of his administration's four-year attack on the pro-choice camp. Trump is the first sitting president to attend the annual March For Life, sign the Born Alive Executive Order and block Planned Parenthood funds. His bold stand should ignite pro-choice defiance and bolster the pro-choice camp. So why are so many in it doubting their view of abortion?The problem comes from within the movement itself: the abortion lobby let radical, extreme voices take center-stage.

Americans hate the Supreme Court. You wouldn’t think so from a look at the polls, which usually show that the court is far more popular than the elected branches of government. But history tells a very different story. The conservative movement as it exists today was formed in large part as a reaction against the liberalism of the Supreme Court under chief justices Earl Warren and Warren Burger — both of whom were Republicans, as it happens. The progressive movement of the early 20th century and the populist movement of the late 19th century were also spurred to varying degrees by the character of the Supreme Court at the time, which was seen as conservative and elitist. Franklin D.

Suburban women are understood to be one of the most crucial demographic groups in the presidential election on November 3. Many pollsters currently predict that President Donald Trump will lose due to his unpopularity with that category of voters. But have the Democrats really reclaimed the suburbs? Or are there more likely Republican voters than the polls suggest? The Spectator tracked down a series of so-called ‘closet Trump’ voters, women from the suburbs who would never publicly voice their support for the President for fear of recrimination in their social circles. These are their stories.

At the Republican National Convention last month, Donald Trump was repeatedly described as the ‘most pro-life President ever’. According to some rather sensational leaked official notes in Sunday’s Daily Telegraph, however, Trump has said he regards abortion as ‘such a tough issue’. Addressing the then British prime minister Theresa May, who is childless, Trump said in January 2017: ‘Imagine some animal with tattoos raping your daughter, and then she gets pregnant.’ Aside from the staggering crassness of this remark to a woman who is on the record about her inability to have children, it also suggests that Trump is not as pro-life as many in his party would have voters believe.

In 2015, an undercover sting led to the release of a series of videos that appeared to show top Planned Parenthood leadership engaged in the sale of aborted fetal body parts. The videos led to a large public outcry and a string of congressional and state inquiries into the embattled abortion provider followed, many of which are rumbling on to the present day.California’s attorney general at the time happened to be the now-Democratic vice presidential nominee, Kamala Harris. Her behavior in response to this case raises some deep concerns about her suitability for high office. First, she declined to investigate any potential illegal activity on the part of Planned Parenthood, instead choosing to throw the book at those behind the sting.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is in the hospital — again. The 87-year-old has overcome many health concerns while sitting on the SCOTUS, but an additional liver cancer diagnosis and a recent number of hospital visits leave little room for optimism. The prospect of President Trump replacing an iconic Democratic-appointed justice is a big fear among leftists. But is this fear rooted more in media hysteria than honest judgment? A single SCOTUS seat is limited in power, especially considering the unpredictable voting patterns of recent GOP-appointed justices. The exact legacy of RBG is up for debate, but everyone, regardless of political leanings, can admire her perseverance.

The Supreme Court has ruled in June Medical Services, LLC v. Russo that the dismemberment and removal of unborn human lives was more important than a woman’s right to a high standard of care. From now on, no reasonable person can view the pro-life movement’s strategy — voting Republican, often with noses held and hoping that some future conservative majority will defend life — as anything but a failure. The foul spirit of Anthony Kennedy’s ‘mystery’ has possessed John Roberts and will no doubt possess some other ‘conservative’ host after him. Matthew Walther suggests a new strategy for the pro-life movement: if you believe that the Court’s rulings on abortion are illegitimate, you should act on your belief.

We must be the first generation of Americans to respond to a mass plague by ensuring we can keep killing our babies. Normal human instincts would command we replace our dying elderly population though reproduction, but amid the prospect of hundreds of thousands of mostly older Americans dying of COVID-19, the left’s fight for on-demand abortion access has only intensified. A group of 21 Democratic attorneys general wrote to HHS and the FDA on Wednesday demanding women have easier access to chemically induced abortions, meaning that pregnant women who wish to abort could be prescribed abortion pills via telehealth services.