Roe v. wade

Democrats teeter on the abortion tightrope

The Democrats are having a hard time keeping their story straight on abortion. Last week, former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki claimed on her MSNBC show (which should be called The Spin Zone) that “no one supports abortion up until birth,” only to then describe all of the scenarios in which she would support a late-term abortion. Vice President Kamala Harris similarly balked in a CBS interview Sunday with Margaret Brennan when asked if she would support any limits on abortion. Instead, she opted to reiterate several times that “we need to put back in place the protections of Roe v. Wade.” The inability of Democrats to articulate what abortion limits they support is a feature, not a bug.

The new battleground for abortion

It’s been just over a year since the Supreme Court decided in the Dobbs case to overturn Roe v. Wade — and pro-life activists were right when they predicted that the fight against abortion was just getting started.  Of course there was plenty for them to celebrate in the aftermath of Roe, which essentially kicked the issue of abortion back to individual states. Thirteen states had “trigger laws” in place that would almost immediately enact near-total bans on abortion, with some exceptions, in the event Roe were overturned. Other states reacted to the Supreme Court’s ruling by passing gestational bans on abortions ranging between six weeks after conception and fetal viability outside the womb.  The new bans are already saving unborn lives.

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The campaign against the Supreme Court’s legitimacy

Ask anyone about politics these days and you’re likely to hear that our government institutions are in crisis. And not just government institutions, really, but American institutions: the nuclear family isn’t what it used to be; the local community group is drying up; the glazed donut bacon double cheeseburger is harder to find than in our glory days. But in particular it’s our government institutions that are in crisis — which is why the Supreme Court is so important. As Congress buckles under the pressure of endless fundraising and cable news navel-gazing, as the presidency stagnates with its shambling commander in chief and massive bureaucracy, at least the Court still seems to work. In fact, it can seem like an oasis of deliberation in a political scene gone mad.

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‘Pro-life’ hardliners will get more babies killed

Extremists have got to learn to take half a loaf. Just like the cheap labor-demanding GOP donors, pro-lifers need to be told: you can’t get everything you want. If Republicans give you this, they’ll lose their jobs, and the people who’ll replace them want you dead. Unlike a lot of people complaining about the anti-abortion zealots, I am an anti-abortion zealot. That’s why I’m begging them to stop pushing wildly unpopular ideas. These fanatics are going to get millions more babies killed when Democrats win supermajorities in both houses of Congress and immediately pass a federal law making abortion-on-demand the law of the land.

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Kamala Harris’s top ten word salads

No assessment of Vice President Kamala Harris's first two years in office would be complete without her word salads and pedantic lectures. Here are just a few of my favorites: Kamala Harris on geography So, Ukraine is a country in Europe. It exists next to another country called Russia. Russia is a bigger country. Russia is a powerful country. Russia decided to invade a smaller country called Ukraine. So, basically, that’s wrong, and it goes against everything that we stand for. Harris on community banks We invested an additional $12 billion into community banks, because we know community banks are in the community, and understand the needs and desires of that community as well as the talent and capacity of community.

How abortion falsehoods put lives at risk

Margaret (not her real name) is a board certified OB-GYN practicing in a Catholic, pro-life hospital system in Michigan. Ever since the Dobbs decision this summer, abortion politics have made it harder to do her job. In particular, as she explained to me, messaging from pro-choice campaigners and politicians has left patients thinking that laws that restrict abortion also restrict the ability of doctors to provide medical care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies or life-threatening complications of pregnancy. The weekend after the Dobbs decision came down, Margaret witnessed a woman put in danger by medical professionals because of this misinformation and their misunderstanding of the abortion laws in her state.

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Pat Buchanan and thirty years of culture wars

It was a relatively cool 85 degrees in Houston on the August evening thirty years ago when Republicans gathered at the Astrodome to renominate George H.W. Bush for the 1992 presidential election. The opening session’s speakers included Senator John McCain, Stanford professor Condoleezza Rice, and re-election campaign co-chairman Ken Lay, later to gain fame as a major figure in the Enron scandals. But the speech that would be the most memorable by far was delivered by a television commentator, syndicated columnist and former Richard Nixon hatchet man — the fifty-four-year-old Irish Catholic Pat Buchanan, who delivered what came to be known as “The Culture War Speech.

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Dobbs won’t save the Democrats

Democrats head into the midterms praying that abortion-rights supporters will reward them for failing. If the Democratic Party has stood for anything over the past half-century, it has stood for the right to end a pregnancy. All the party had to do was to defend the status quo established by Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey. But it proved unable to do that, despite the two-term administrations of Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, despite controlling the Senate from 2007 to 2015 and again from 2019 until now, and despite the virtual monopoly Democrats enjoy on the sympathy of the news and entertainment media. With all these advantages, Democrats could not safeguard a right that their voters consider fundamental. Now Democrats expect voters to trust them to regain what they lost.

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Is Lindsey Graham’s abortion bill a trap for Democrats?

The blue wave cometh — or does it? Contra reports that a cerulean tsunami is bearing down on Congress, RealClearPolitics still projects that the GOP will win the Senate this November, and Tuesday's dismal inflation numbers have only boosted Republican hopes. So...back to the red wave then? Or maybe the red and blue waves will combine into a purple wave, which, in conjunction with a chartreuse wave, will bury Politico's offices in a sea of multicolored futility? Midterm election predictions are always a fool's game, which is why pundits love them. Yet allow this much: the political climate right now is uncertain. And it's into this tense atmosphere that Senator Lindsey Graham has chucked what some are saying could be a game-changer.

How much, really, changes post-Roe?

It was sad to see the glee with which pro-choice advocates welcomed the news that the ten-year-old Ohio rape victim was real. Surprisingly she lacks a nom de guerre yet, something like Victim Zero, Baby Doe or Child Jane. She went from victim to martyr to symbol within a news cycle or two. The story just received new life as Indiana, where the abortion was performed, has since voted to ban most abortions. We know now an illegal alien who should never have been in the United States (his status is never to be talked about again of course as it's outside the narrative) twice raped the ten-year-old.

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Dear America: moving to Europe won’t solve all your problems

“In Europe people wear breathable clothes made out of natural materials, in the USA people wear plastic.” “In Europe people sleep indoors, not in tents on the street like Los Angeles.” “Unfortunately people have a lot of reactions to gluten in the US and zero issues in Europe” “How can you avoid looking like an American tourist in France?” Scroll through your news feed and you’ll witness a lot of Americans, usually those who pride themselves on their progressive views, indiscriminately romanticizing “Europe.” In the wake of the endless Covid restrictions and after Roe v. Wade was overturned, there’s been endless social media chatter about how to move from the US to Europe.

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Why the pro-abortion left won in Kansas

After all the pro-life enthusiasm following the Supreme Court's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, it was immediately clear to anyone paying attention that the politics of abortion in America would be completely changed. We now have the first example of that in Kansas, where a well-funded pro-abortion effort was able to block an attempt to amend the state constitution to allow the legislature to regulate abortion. Even in a Republican-heavy electorate, the ballot measure failed by a margin of 63 percent to 37 percent as of press time — fueled in part by heavier than expected opposition from more socially moderate mail-in voters. For pro-lifers, their incrementalist strategy over much of the past fifty years focused on the courts.

Dobbs has changed America forever

For nearly half a century, American politics has been defined according to the strictures of a single Supreme Court decision: Roe v. Wade. The 1973 case determined abortion policy for the entire nation, striking down state rules and creating a political movement in response which played out in unexpected and completely polarized ways. It drove southern evangelical Christians and northern Catholics into unorthodox political partnerships. It cut across the Democratic Party coalition, leading to constant squabbling even through the passage of Obamacare. It led directly to the creation of the conservative legal movement, the elevation of prospective judicial nominees as of the utmost importance in assessing presidential candidates.

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Asking a rabbi about abortion

When the Roe news broke, my thoughts — myopically — turned not to the millions of Americans who were rejoicing, or the millions of Americans who were mourning, but to a social engagement I had coming up a few days thereafter. The intimate dinner would be populated by a few friends and family on both sides of the aisle, with very different perspectives on abortion and, obviously, very different reactions to the news. I was dreading it. Imagine my surprise when, over steaks and haricots verts, the conversation was productive, the rhetoric thoughtful, and the passions cool... most of the time.

Is there hope for a compromise on abortion?

We don't really negotiate much in the US and so we're bad at it. The American style of negotiating is to demand everything and settle for nothing less. We ask for an outrageously large amount and "bargain down" after the other side offers an equally outrageous small amount. Starting anywhere near your actual number is considered a sign of weakness. We don't like gray areas and we don't like to feel like we've lost out on something. So being asked to support something that on its face seems reasonable, like allowing two people in love living together in a home they co-own to marry, means buying into a whole LGBTQIA2+ agenda that somehow includes forcing kids to listen to drag queens read stories aloud about sexually ambitious caterpillars and their same-sex tadpole pals.

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Are patients losing access to their autoimmune drugs post-Roe?

I was legitimately worried when I saw a friend post that her daughter may lose access to an important drug used to treat her autoimmune disease. In the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the Supreme Court, my friend said drugs such as Methotrexate and Mifepristone were being banned in some states because of their dual purposes as medicative abortion drugs. As an ardent pro-lifer, I’ve been adamant to clarify how the overturning of Roe v. Wade affects women outside of the legality of abortion itself. When I first heard that ectopic pregnancy or miscarriage treatment could be criminalized in some way, I immediately consulted doctors and lawyers who could clarify the law’s intent.

Can American idiots renounce their US citizenship?

American idiot and Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong said he is going to renounce his US citizenship and move to England because he is so upset over the Supreme Court overturning the landmark abortion case Roe v. Wade. The singer made the comments to a crowd at the band's show in London, specifically "F*ck America, I’m f*cking renouncing my citizenship. I’m f*cking coming here." He called the justices "pr*cks" and said "f*ck the Supreme Court of America." Can he do that? Does it make any sense? Armstrong should first check on what abortion laws look like in the United Kingdom. Assuming he understands the difference, the UK is composed of Scotland, Wales, England, and Northern Ireland.

Is losing God making America miserable?

The number of Americans who believe in God has reached an all-time low, according to a Gallup survey that’s been tracking our nation’s “values and beliefs” since 1944. For a God fearin’ woman such as myself, it’s a disheartening statistic. But we are told never to abandon hope, and recent events — the Supreme Court rulings against abortion and in favor of prayer, a million swing voters switching their registrations to Republican, Keeping Up with the Kardashians finally airing its last season — betoken a more God-centered future. Gallup reports: The vast majority of US adults believe in God, but the 81 percent who do so is down six percentage points from 2017 and is the lowest in Gallup’s trend.

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Where does the pro-life movement go from here?

Few releases have been better timed. “By the time this book is in your hands,” write authors Ryan T. Anderson and Alexandra DeSanctis, “we will all know how the Court has ruled.” And they were right, just barely: I began reading Tearing Us Apart: How Abortion Harms Everything and Solves Nothing the day after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization decision. Perhaps some might counter that now that the abortion movement has suffered such a blow, Tearing Us Apart is actually poorly timed. We won, didn’t we? Why rehash all the arguments against abortion in light of victory? Yet such thinking fails to understand how terribly toxic fifty years of an American abortion regime has really been.

Bad-faith readings are damaging our discourse

The Eragon fantasy series I enjoyed as a child isn’t very good, but one aspect of its magic system is pretty interesting. Wizards use magic by speaking in an enchanted language, but the literal meaning of the words trumps the magician’s intent. A single word mispronounced during the blessing of an infant turns the child into a “shield against misfortune” rather than one “shielded against misfortune.” The child grows up to lead a hellish life, haunted by an irresistible compulsion to take the suffering of others upon herself. This is the stuff of fantasy precisely because it’s not how language actually works. People get tongue-tied. They use terms that have different meanings in different contexts. They open their word-hoards and pull out the wrong ones. It happens.