There is an old saying that is going to have a big effect on this year’s campaign.
“Be careful what you wish for.”
Conservatives spent half a century bemoaning the Supreme Court’s Roe v Wade decision that made abortion legal for millions of American women. Their dream finally came true in 2022 when the Court, in its Dobbs decision, reversed Roe and said states could ban abortion if they so desired.
Former President Donald Trump appointed the three justices who made the difference in a 5-4 ruling and he has been bragging ever since that he gave his voters what no one else could.
Except that so far at least, it isn’t working out the way they hoped, and if Trump fails to win election this fall, Dobbs might just be the deciding factor.
It certainly hurt Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections, and several states that would be considered ruby red — Kansas and Ohio come to mind — voted in statewide referendums to protect a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy.
Of course they’re lying about it. Fox squawk show host Sean Hannity claimed on this radio show yesterday that Democrats are lying about what the Dobbs ruling did.
“(Vice President) Kamala Harris sticking to their demagogue, a demagoguing of abortion issue and saying, ‘the Supreme Court overturning the Roe decision took away a Constitutional right for women in America.’ That’s not what it did at all. It allows the states to decide individually what they want in terms of the state standards for abortion. Nice try, but what she said is just false.
“On abortion rights, she said, ‘this is about taking freedoms away.” Nobody’s taking away anybody’s right to an abortion. You know, it may not be as convenient as it once was because of where you live, but you’re going to have access to abortion even, you know, Democrats’ belief that you’re going to have late term abortion, which is insane to me and infanticide to me.“
Hannity says Dobbs means the decision will be left to individual states, but that’s basically disingenuous. The Far Right is already pushing for a nationwide ban on abortions, and if they can elect Trump this fall, hold the House of Representatives and gain control of the Senate, it’s a basic certainty that passing that ban would be a top priority.
As much as they don’t want to admit it, the belief that life begins at conception is not universal. Christian Dominionists believe it, but our two other major religions don’t, In Judaism, life begins with the first breath or air after birth. And in Islam, full human life begins with the ensoulment of the fetus about 120 days after conception.
I do not believe in the “both sides are bad” argument so many people love to use. In politics at least, saying both parties are bad is like comparing shoplifting to serial murder. We have a national debt of more than $34 trillion primarily because of Republican tax cuts. Period.
I do get annoyed with Democrats on the way they describe their position on the abortion issue. You never hear the word abortion. All they’ll say it they support a woman’s right to choose.
Choose what?
Vanilla or chocolate ice cream?
Mercedes or BMW?
Could they at least say they support a woman’s right to choose whether to give birth?
Of course Republicans are worse. Many of them want a 10-year-old victim of rape or incest to carry to full term and give birth. They want women who have miscarriages to be prosecuted for killing their babies. They lie and say woman can actually kill their babies after they are born.
They benefitted during the 50 years of Roe from the fact that it provided a safety value and also from the fact that most women weren’t one-issue voters, But as they push for a national ban, that may not be true much longer.
It’s going to be very interesting.