From "Donald Trump Is Not of Two Minds About Abortion" (NYT), from Jamelle Bouie, who proceeds to speculate about why it shouldn't work. Democrats and the anti-Trump media will continue to critique Trump for making the 3 Supreme Court appointments that led to the overruling of Roe v. Wade. And Republicans will continue to push for legislation restricting abortion as much as possible.
But Trump is offering to mediate, to bring both sides together to come up with a number — a number of weeks within which women can freely obtain abortions — probably not 6, something like 10 or 12.* Yes, it's triangulation, beginning with 2 strong, highly idealized positions. The column headline is correct, because to want the compromise is not to be "of two minds." It's one position, and Trump clearly stated it.**
I like seeing Trump opponents engage on the substantive merits of issues (as opposed to demonizing Trump, the man). I can see why there is hesitancy to engage him on the merits, and not just because it undercuts the demonization strategy — "normalizing" him. It may reveal that his positions on the merits are better than any alternatives his opponents are capable of articulating.
With that in mind, I'm interested in seeing what happens with the auto workers strike as Biden travels to Michigan next work to join the picket line. Biden's people were, seemingly, motivated by Trump's decision to go to Michigan to air his views on the topic, so a real debate on the merits may come into focus. I like seeing that Trump's antagonists realize they have to debate the issues.
_________________________
* Here's my July 2, 2022 blog post about this kind of solution:
I don't expect Congress to take advantage of the opportunity to come together and do something practical and helpful, and obviously my little unscientific poll shows an overwhelming preference for Congress to do nothing at all, but I just wanted to suggest that it would be sensible for Congress to create a statutory right to abortion in the first 10 weeks, leaving the rest of the legislative choice to the states.... ... I wish [Congress] would... get a modest time-limited right in place to meet the real needs of women in states, like mine, who now have no right to abortion.
** Well, I mean... it's clear to me but maybe only because I can see through the verbiage. So let me quote from the "Meet the Press" transcript:
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Kristen, you’re asking me a question. What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy. Because 92% of the Democrats don’t want to see abortion after a certain period of time.
KRISTEN WELKER:
If a federal ban landed on your desk if you were reelected, would you sign it at 15 weeks —
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Are you talking about a complete ban?
He knows there needs to be an exception — at least to save the life of the mother.
KRISTEN WELKER:
A ban at 15 weeks.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Well, people, people are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Would you sign that?
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t. I mean, DeSanctus is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.
He won't say the number, only that the negotiation — the "art of the deal" — will be to work toward a number.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Would you support that? You think that goes too far?
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. But we’ll come up with a number, but at the same time, Democrats won’t be able to go out at six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion.... We will agree to a number of weeks, which will be where both sides will be happy. We have to bring the country together on this issue.
KRISTEN WELKER:
Mr. President, when you talk about negotiating, I think a lot of people think to themselves, this is an issue that they care about deeply in their hearts —
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I care about it too. Oh, I care about it too.
KRISTEN WELKER:
And they know where they stand, and they want to know where you stand. As you know, some anti-abortion groups are really looking for some clarity from you. So let me just ask you to put a fine point on this. Should the federal government impose any abortion restrictions, or should it be completely left up to the states?
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
No, I don’t think you should have — I don’t think you should be allowed to have abortions well into a pregnancy.
He avoided her question, but I can see that his answer is that the federal government should guarantee the right to abortion in the first X weeks and (perhaps) ban abortion in the last X weeks of pregnancy and leave the rest to the states.
KRISTEN WELKER:
But what about the question I just asked you —
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
We’re going to agree — no — we’re going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it. And both sides are going to come together and both sides — both sides, and this is a big statement, both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you’ll have an issue that we can put behind us.
KRISTEN WELKER:
At the federal level?
This is the question he's being cagey about. Good for Welker for asking again.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t frankly care.
KRISTEN WELKER:
So you’re not committed to a ban at the federal level.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
I will say this. Everybody, including the great legal scholars, love the idea of Roe v. Wade terminated so it can be brought back to the states.
He likes leaving it to the states, but he knows something needs to be done at the federal level and this is where the deal will be made.
KRISTEN WELKER:
It sounds like that’s what you think too, that it should remain a state issue —
Hah. It doesn't sound that way to me.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
Well, I, I would, I would say this: From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better, but I can live with it either way. It’s much more important, the number of weeks is much more important. But something will happen with the number of weeks, the amount of time, after which you can’t do it. And you know what? The most — the most powerful people that are anti-abortion are okay with that now. And you know what? They weren’t okay with that even a year ago.... Look, something is going to happen that’s going to be good for everybody. And that’s what I’m — I’m almost like a mediator in this case. They wanted Roe v. Wade terminated because it was inappropriate. We got it done. Something is going to happen. It’s going to be a number of weeks. Something is going to happen where the both sides are going to be able to come together....
KRISTEN WELKER:
Are you saying a federal ban with exceptions, is that what you’re saying?
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
What I say is very simple, because you can’t put words in my mouth like that —
He won't say it and she's making it clear that he won't.
KRISTEN WELKER:
I just want to understand.
FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:
– because you’ve been hearing me talk about this... and I think talk about it very productively. It could be a state ban, it could be a federal ban, but Democrats want that too. Democrats don’t want to see abortion in the seventh month, okay. I speak to a lot of Democrats. They want a number. There is a number, and there’s a number that’s going to be agreed to, and Republicans should go out and say the following. They — cause, I think the Republicans speak very inarticulately about this subject. I watch some of them without the exceptions, et cetera, et cetera. I said, “Other than certain parts of the country, you can’t — you’re not going to win on this issue. But you will win on this issue when you come up with the right number of weeks.” Because Democrats don’t want to be radical on the issue, most of them, some do. They don’t want to be radical on the issue. They don’t want to kill a baby in the seventh month or the ninth month or after birth. And they’re allowed to do that, and you can’t do that.
Posts
95 comments:
"it would be sensible for Congress to create a statutory right to abortion in the first 10 weeks"
As a pacifying political move, yes. Gets a lot of GOPers off the hook, for one thing.
Not that it matters, considering that actual government does not even approximately fit constitutional design, but where does the Constitution authorize such legislation? Would such legislation pass muster in court after Dobbs?
LOL... Good luck. the left hate Trump... and will crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden.. or whoever the puppet masters install. (but it will be biden) Abortion is everything to the left, but so is hating Trump.
Trump's support has a ceiling - and he has already hit it.
I thought it was up to the states?
Trump never said the correct answer. It's up to each state now.
The media(D) want an answer to something that doesn't need triangulation. It's a state issue now.
Of course Trump will mediate an appropriate solution.
Dude is a modern day King Salomon.
Enjoy the spectacle of the hard right always being horrified by the consequences of trying to enact its agenda.
First Jan 6, then Roe v Wade repeal and now a shutdown.
The reason the far right is using these tactics is because they are a small minority and don’t have the votes to implement their “policies”, neither in congress nor in states. When they have attempted to pass “minority rule” laws they have been voted down. Voters in traditional red states have been voting against them, independent democratic and republicans. To quote one life time republican whose grandfather, father and he had always voted red in Wisconsin just prior to the 2020 election, “This is NOT my Republican Party.“. He voted against Trump in 2020, and it seems Wisconsin did too.
If the Republicans' looney tunes brigade (led by the likes of Donald Trump) manage to bring about a shutdown of US government, surely those voters who are not enamored of their "let it all burn down" school of policy will choose to bounce out the lunatics in November 2024...?
Republicans, including Trump, are too politically stupid to see the advantage of deeming abortion to be a state, not federal, issue.
So many women are committed to routinely having unprotected sex that the future of the nation depends on it.
Screw (no pun intended) the border, the economy, the debt, drug overdoses, homelessness, DOJ corruption, energy dependence, etc., so long as the girls can fuck for fun. 60 million unborn babies slaughtered? Meh!
Didn’t Trump simply weigh in that DeSantis’ 6 week limit for Florida was too restrictive for the state of Florida.
Is Trump even arguing for an actual federal policy?
Three menstrual cycle times would be the most stable on the short end. You need time to discover you're pregnant at outside odds (irregular cycle, using contraception).
"Dude is a modern day King Salomon."
Modern day 'King Salmonella', to some. He's taking the right course on the issue though, as the polling clearly points. All he has to do is start pointing out that the Progressive Left has landed, by choice, on the most toxic position, and keep making them own it, every square inch, over and over - and then he'll move toward affirming the state right to legislate what their populace wants.
I'm not for a complete ban and I don't like bans at 6 weeks. But politically, pushing the Dems to admit they don't believe in any legal limits is the play.
The Dems currently being interviewed won't give a number of weeks. They won't give any limits at all.
Another example of Trump having no core. Issues are interchangeable. The only goal is to craft a deal where both sides will like him.
An enduring mystery will be what motivated people to support a man who would sell them into slavery if it would feed his narcissism.
Rich, does being a shill for the left pay well? Are you completely soulless, or do you sit up at night wondering what will happen when you achieve the left's goals of depopulating the planet and destroying western civilization? No matter how evil you think the left is, you are being too kind.
It is a smart political move by Trump, and he is doing it from a position of strength within the Republican primaries. A strong majority of Americans can be found to support strong restrictions on abortion after about 10-15 weeks gestation. Now, logically, this position makes no sense, but we are talking about humans and politics here, not logic.
Right now, both parties are on the fringes- Democrat leaders want abortion legal right up until the baby is out and the umbilical cord is severed, Republican leaders want it illegal in most cases. Neither is a majority position with the voters.
That this was a smart move by Trump is the reason the Left is attacking him for it- they really do need the GOP candidate to be hardcore anti-abortionist. If Trump is the nominee, the argument he is making won't cost him any net votes in the general election and will make him more electable with moderates/independent voters- I think the position is a net vote positive. It can cost him votes in the primaries, though- there the voters are primarily strong anti-abortion- he is gambling a bit here, but like I wrote above, right now he is way ahead of his Republican opposition.
But Trump is offering to mediate, to bring both sides together to come up with a number — a number of weeks within which women can freely obtain abortions — probably not 6, something like 10 or 12.*
It will never work. The Left will accept nothing short of an absolute right to an abortion up to the minute before birth.
Rich is all for far left policies:
-Open southern border - 5-7 million illegal entrants and counting.
-Inflation
-Unsustainable national debt
-Leftwing fascism in our schools and at the auto-plant
-They-Them pronoun fascism
-Sex books in school libraries - and then lying about sex books in school libraries.
-Biden family money grubbing total corruption gets a pass. wink wink
-250 US tax payer dollars to Ukraine for fake green energy - tax payer money that will end up in elite leftist coffers
-Abortion on demand up until birth
-J-6 BS and leftist narratives - ignoring Ray Epps and the untold numbers of feds in the crowd
AMDG said...
"Another example of Trump having no core. Issues are interchangeable. The only goal is to craft a deal where both sides will like him.
An enduring mystery will be what motivated people to support a man who would sell them into slavery if it would feed his narcissism."
It's somehow refreshing to know that we're never in any danger of you having a rational thought. Ease up on vaping that THC.
"But Trump is offering to mediate, to bring both sides together to come up with a number..."
Solving a problem? Well, we can't have that, can we now? Time to impeach him again, don't you think?
" Another example of Trump having no core. Issues are interchangeable. The only goal is to craft a deal where both sides will like him."
Sort of like Abe Lincoln's analysis to Horace Greely on the issue of slavery. Substitute "abortion" into that remark where Lincoln considers slavery -- where old Abe had a long, solid, deep core -- and see if it's different:
I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the national authority can be restored; the nearer the Union will be "the Union as it was." If there be those who would not save the Union, unless they could at the same time save abortion, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time destroy abortion, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy abortion. If I could save the Union without killing any infants I would do it, and if I could save it by aborting any infants I would do it; and if I could save it by aborting many and leaving others alone I would also do that. What I do about abortion, and our unborn citizens, I do because I believe it helps to save the Union; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. I shall do less whenever I shall believe what I am doing hurts the cause, and I shall do more whenever I shall believe doing more will help the cause. I shall try to correct errors when shown to be errors; and I shall adopt new views so fast as they shall appear to be true views.
Trump's promises aren't the real story, the real story is that anyone believes anything he says.
Rhetorical flexibility is easy if you don't have any principles. He can be flexible because he doesn't believe anything he says; no one else should believe him either. Trump's art of the deal are his plans to keep the spotlight continuously shining on him, period.
Before Roe was dismembered, I always referred to it as "abortion on demand". I have no problem with liberal states agreeing to something they can live with, and the conservative states doing the same.
How about a Post-Roe Convention. A two-day gathering of academics, politicians and clergy to discuss suggestions for moving forward.
Since Trump isn't going to be President, it's hard to care about anything he says or does.
The Democrats and the 6 billionaires who control all (meaningful) media in the United States have already agreed that the Democrat nominee will be the President. That is all that is required.
An enduring mystery is why AMDG thinks anyone should take their remarks seriously when they cast political compromise - which used to be held as an ideal, and consistent polling for years shows the public wants on almost every issue - as 'coreless' and akin, somehow, to selling people into slavery if it garners approval.
Extremely strange how completely normal political behavior, offering compromise, is frothingly responded to by the AMDGs of the world.
Trump is wise not to be the Decider on the number of weeks. That just invites daggers to be sent his way. By being open to working with both sides to come up with a compromise on the number of weeks and the exceptions, he wins. It’s what leaders do, actually.
While he does enjoy the thought of people being happy with him if he succeeds, he’s also happy at the thought of the issue being put to rest after 52 years of division about it. You have to make all sides happy to be successful, though. There will be factions that won’t settle for anything, but hopefully much smaller numbers of them.
"it would be sensible for Congress to create a statutory right to abortion in the first 10 weeks"
This language is what prolifers object to. We aren't going to "create a statutory right to abortion" at any time. But I would support a "ban on abortions after 15 weeks."
Let me mention here that I've been arrested for blocking the entrance to abortion clinics in the US and in Italy, France, Spain, England, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium. Others have suffered much more than I ever did but I never held back. I'm not a secret proabort, I was a member of what they now call "Old Rescue". Now, at 80, I'm just an old rescuer. But some of my friends, youthful 75-year-olds like Joan Andrews Bell, took part in a non-violent action at a late-term abortion clinic in DC along with young, progressive, queer and trans anti-abortion activists, were charged with felonies, were convicted in August/September 2023, were whisked of jail before sentencing, and are facing a possible eleven-year sentence.
I believe their effort should be used to help toward enacting late-term abortion bans at the state level. I reason that I think the unborn are human from the moment of conception while others think the unborn steadily become more human. Why can't we try to get along by at least banning those abortions where we agree on the humanity of the unborn child, i.e., late-term abortions? But those in jail and out disagree vehemently with me. It is necessary to remind people I've rescued and that's not enough to prevent screams of rage and dreadful accusations.
I think that people are afraid of "creating a statutory right" to kill the unborn. It still seems to me that supporting "a ban on abortions at 15 weeks" isn't that. The worst of the abortion side will say that's what it means but we can't be paralyzed for fear they'll lie. We can be certain they will whatever we do. Let's save some lives whatever anyone says.
@alanc709: I stand in awe at any serious attempt to make Trump out to be a rational actor making calculated political decisions in the interest of others.
Haha, smart guy. Slippery and lucid.
The lucidest!
Keep women affordable, available, and taxable, and the "burden" of evidence sequestered in darkness?
There is no mystery in sex and conception 'til death do us part.
Six weeks to baby meets granny in legal state across all 50 states.
Civilized society should be wary of human rites performed for social, clinical, political, criminal, and fair weather progress.
A woman, and man, have four choices, the wicked solution is neither a good nor exclusive choice.
#HateLovesAbortion
Those like myself who can't bring ourselves to ignore the fact that a human being is already a human being while in the mother's womb will still be very unhappy. So, we can only keep repeating something like this:
Little human, in a womb,
come and join us: we'll make room.
How sad it is, to fear or hate you--
we should love! -- not terminate you.
Rich: "Enjoy the spectacle of the hard right always being horrified by the consequences of trying to enact its agenda.
First Jan 6, then Roe v Wade repeal and now a shutdown."
Jan 6 did not even reach the magnitude of the Portland riots, sponsored and endorsed by Democrats, in terms of injuries or property damage, including firebombing the federal courthouse.
Roe v. Wade has always been bad law and was universally decried by legal scholars at the time it was decided.
When did the usual, hysterical and historical threat of "government shutdown" ever amount to anything?
You are unlikely to find any takers for your bullshit here. Our regular Democrat trolls don't amount to much, but they leave you in the dust.
Abortion is an excellent example of why people call the Republicans the stupid party. The reality is, main stream public opinion is far closer to the Republican position than it is to the Democratic, but Democrats have successfully painted the Republicans as extreme. The Republicans two fatal problems on the abortion issue: (1) most Republicans still haven’t figured out how to manage a hostile press, and (2) they allow a handful of their most extreme members to speak for the party.
If indeed Trump is triangulating and "mediating" between the two camps, it strikes me as an inevitable move of possibly-Napoleonic genius. So far nobody else has emerged to claim the middle ground between zero and 9 months; not effectively, not at a national level. Yet the polls show that many people, maybe most voters, see the least-bad solution, morally and practically, as coming from the middle ground. Somewhere between 12 and 18 weeks? Look at Europe, toward which the bien-pensants are always looking. Europe seems to have settled on numbers in that range --and imposed heavy penalties on those who don't follow them.
Done right, Trump's move could leave a lot of the more-extreme players dangling in mid-air, still set on pleasing their base but with that base now lacking the voters who form, as always, the Muddle in the Middle.
It is always about The Art of the Deal for Trump. It worked for him his entire business life and it's what he knows.
The author is correct. The Dems are going to sink the GOP on the abortion issue. That's how that porn star north of Richmond will win her seat. Just watch.
He knows if the Dems don’t come to the table to negotiate they become the unreasonable party.
It’s an Abraham Accord for the US.
We had a 3/5 compromise, with diversity we have a 1/2 compromise in progress. With human rites, there is a selective, fluid, compromise in liberal societies not limited to the wicked solution under the Pro-Choice ethical religion.
are there any attempts being made at devising better early detection for pregnancy?
or sitting on toilet at 9 months and dropping is preferable?
“Didn’t Trump simply weigh in that DeSantis’ 6 week limit for Florida was too restrictive for the state of Florida.”
That’s the one thing I elided from the transcript so click the link to see that part.
“Is Trump even arguing for an actual federal policy?”
As I said, in my comments, along with the transcript, he was being cagey about whether any federal government action would be involved, but rationally, logically, what he was talking about had to involve federal legislation. But clearly he didn’t want to talk about it in that interview, and Welker really tried repeatedly to get him to talk about it.
I am mystified. What Trump is saying here is absolutely rational, centrist and pragmatic. And consistent with the law as stated by the Supreme Court.
And he says it better than any other politician out there.
What he is saying, that no other politician has the balls to say, is that Dobbs freed up all of us--our country--to have a rational discussion about abortion and, like virtually every other western country, reach a reasonable compromise.
But he must be wrong, because he is Trump, and because he won't let Kristin Welker maneuver him into a harmful sound bite.
Screw them all. If you want to fix what is very badly broken in this country, you need to stop demonizing any effort at rational debate and negotiation.
Abortion remains an issue for some voters, but not the overriding issue when you consider that Gallup polling data shows that public optimism has declined from over 40% positive about the state of the nation in the Trump administration to only 18% satisfied this year.
Americans' economic confidence has dropped from over 40% positive to a remarkable -43% negative figure, as of Gallup data from this spring.
The vote-the-pocketbook notion says Biden is history no matter what he does regarding next year's election; run or not run. How desperate the DNC may be for candidates remains to be seen. But trying to ride any dissatisfaction over the end of Roe v Wade does not look like it goes very far.
Far right? Gov Nukem'(D) CA sez if we can't infringe on the Second Amendment you got no respect for human life.
Abortion kills lots babies, (2020 623,000+) being mostly mindless dems, is OK by me.
By orders of magnitude, the left's gun violence and abortions demonstrate equivalent respect for life of Josef Stalin.
You've got no grounds to lecture me, Rich.
wildswan- I had no idea about your rich history! Thank you for sharing.
I think that people are afraid of "creating a statutory right" to kill the unborn. It still seems to me that supporting "a ban on abortions at 15 weeks" isn't that.
I do think that seems a key difference.
Kill 'em in utero or shred them at 14. Lotsa "human respect".
Another example of Trump having no core.
So lemme get this straight. The "core" of every politician on the left is that there should be a federal right to abortion on demand throughout pregnancy - or at least that's the public position of every Democrat politician. A nine-month fetus days from birth is no different, policy-wise, from a blastocyst.
But if some Democrats' privately held opinions (including, one might hope, our Catholic President's, unless his publicly held religious convictions are just maybe not genuine at his core) are not in line with their public support of unlimited abortion, why, that's nuance!
In the immediate aftermath of Dobbs, the common opinion was that eventually most states would settle on something like a 10-12 week limit. As for a federal limit... it will never happen because the left will not permit it to happen. Abortion is a sacrament that must never be restricted. So Trump risks nothing by offering to work with both sides: the right will give him some slack because he gave them Dobbs, while the left will dig in and refuse any sort of compromise, and in the end his overtures will likely play well with independents.
Speaking as someone who doesn't have an answer to the question, I ask: Where in the Constitution was Congress empowered to prohibit sovereign state governments from setting the dividing lines between permissible and impermissible abortions?
I thought the Dobbs decision was based upon principles of federalism (i.e. federal vs. state powers), not separation of powers (i.e., division of authority among the federal legislative, executive, and judicial branches).
Actually, the state referenda on abortion show that the majority of Americans oppose any restrictions on abortion even in deeply red states. So go ahead with your X week bans and we'll see you in '24. I hope that the worst House speaker in decades forces them to take some pointless vote on this...
The GOP was gifted a solution completely simpatico to their supposed core beliefs by SCOTUS (leaving “it” to the states) and they are going to screw it up by playing to the far right. Republicans have earned and will continue to earn their wilderness years.
@Ampersand
Congress can use the commerce power and conditional spending under the current doctrine. That can be challenged in court and there’s a decent chance the currently configured Court will reject that power.
Unfortunately or not, this kind of deal must happen. Abortion is a poison pill. What is the point of having a Republican presidential race if you don’t settle. It’s a waste of time and money.
So make a deal or give up. There is no level of communication that can occur that will keep a majority from voting against you on this by next year. Sorry, too much joss, an irresistible force.
You can choose to die on this hill claiming your position is the only moral one. It is your privilege to do that.
This is what a candidate does when he has effectively won his primary.
It's always been done like this...
"If you want to fix what is very badly broken in this country, you need to stop demonizing any effort at rational debate and negotiation."
Lots of people don't want to fix it. Like most all problems, managing it (or pretending to, anyway) is more profitable for the government than finding solutions.
The problem with abortion is the sheer moral depravity involved in advocating for it. You have an abortion, ever? You can never, ever admit to yourself that what you did was kill a baby. Because of that, the people who have had them are morally invested in "the right to an abortion".
Similarly, I presume, they'd likely react the same way to making the ancient practice of exposure illegal, which was what we used to do, before safe surgical procedures.
The raw fact is, the people who want legal abortion are degenerates. They want their sex consequence-free, and do not want the moral types to deny them their "right" to take a life at their convenience.
What's really humorous to me? Looking at the demographics, the idea of legalized abortion remaining as a "social norm" sort of thing is absolutely ludicrous. Today's "women's rights" are going to evaporate in the harsh light of demographic reality, and it won't be too long before there are governments out there that say "Yeah, you ain't had your 2.1 kiddoes? Back of the bus, useless flesh..." It will start with people looking askance at the "child-free", and likely end with prison-like maternity centers where jaywalkers wind up forced to bear children for other people.
All y'all need to look around at the state of the world, the coercion they're already on board for, with everything else. When they start to run out of people to lord it over, and have to start doing their own damn dishes? Watch what happens, when the control-freak types finally wrap their heads around the whole "birth-dearth" issue. It'll get ugly, fast--And, the first casualty will likely be legalized abortion. Just watch... It'll turn on a dime, and you'll be sitting there going "WTF just happened...?"
The really sad thing is, the women of the world are still going to be victimized by it all, just as they were by the so-called "sexual revolution", which was more about getting men as much consequence-free sex as possible. It's an unfortunate thing, but clarity of vision isn't something women generally possess as a group. If they did, then about half the crap that they've fallen for as a group over the last several generations would have never, ever gotten off the ground.
What's funny is that it's gonna be the same people saying "Have your kids!!! Or, else..." that were saying "Abortion should be cheap, easy, and common..." Disbelieve me? Look at China; one year, the Party says "One child!!!" and enforces that with draconian glee. The next? "Oh, shit... Our demographics are f*cked!!! Make babies!!! Make babies!!!! Mothers with more than one kid are no longer criminals, but Heroes of the Revolution!!!"
Similar things will happen everywhere, once the numbers become clear. Right now, the idiots in charge are only noticing the harbingers. Once they're facing miniscule cohorts of new citizens, expect the panic and draconian measures to show up. I give it until about 2050-2080, and you're going to start seeing people figuring out the implications of a 1.39 total fertility rate, followed by God alone knows what reactive excess. Which won't accrue to the benefit of any woman then of reproductive age. I fully expect, as well, that the "child-free" are going to get hit with punitive taxes and a bunch of other things, because ain't nobody raising their kids to be wage-slaves to pay for someone else's retirement, who didn't have kids of their own.
Late-21st Century retirement plans are gonna be lit. I expect a bunch of places in the desert Southwest to have little enclaves of "child-free" elderly, who're going to be banding together to change each other's Depends. Observing all this work out will be a fascinating study in observing whether people can work out Consequence "B" from Cause "A".
It ( as usual with trump ) is the correct position. Complete bans on abortion in this day and age is totalitarian, full stop.
The prevailing European limits make sense to me. The first trimester or so sounds right to me
Hunter Biden's tax payer funded Hooker said...
LOL... Good luck. the left hate Trump... and will crawl over broken glass to vote for Biden.. or whoever the puppet masters install. (but it will be biden) Abortion is everything to the left, but so is hating Trump.
Trump's support has a ceiling - and he has already hit it.
Yup-per.
Are trying to convince me that Trump has no core values?
Congress can use the commerce power and conditional spending under the current doctrine. That can be challenged in court and there’s a decent chance the currently configured Court will reject that power.
Shorter SCOTUS: those other assholes got it wrong...again
I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years.
Don’t bet on it. Too many people have spent a half century despising each other, and that cannot end at the snap of some fingers. Moreover there are people who’ve basically made money from the neverending abortion controversy, and they are going to want to undermine any effort to negotiate an agreement.
But the thing that, to my mind, will kill any agreement (and peace and love and butterflies) is that the pro-abortionists have viewed the women on the Pro-Life side as ill-educated, barely sentient troglodytes. Negotiation when one side is so contemptuous of the other will be challenging, to say the least, and probably impossible. I think it’s within reason that Althouse might not get caught in this trap because of the sensible comments she’s seen posted by sensible, Pro-Life female commentators on this blog, but most of her Pro-Abortion feminist sisters are careful to cocoon themselves away from any and all opinions that disagree with their own.
I thought the Dobbs decision was based upon principles of federalism (i.e. federal vs. state powers), not separation of powers (i.e., division of authority among the federal legislative, executive, and judicial branches).
Alito also made sure to quote a 13th century English dude on the matter, so he also must have sought some basis in that. It dates from a time long before women had rights either in Europe or America, and corresponds to the worldview his earthy authority on abortion compels him to have.
But you are right that federalism permits states to have theocracies, as long as they set out their theocratic principles in secular verbiage. It’s all about how sneaky they are in going about it!
It will never work. The Left will accept nothing short of an absolute right to an abortion up to the minute before birth.
@gahrie, let’s not forget that here in Virginia Democrat Governor Ralph Northam tried to push through legislation that would extend “abortion rights” to babies born alive. That did contribute a bit to Glenn Youngkin’s victory two years ago.
"What makes this backward from everything else is that normally, in every criminal prosecution I can think of, the power imbalance is that the state has all the power and the defendant has none. But in this case, you have a defendant who has very significant power."
**************************
What horse hockey. The state has the power to lock Trump up forever, and all Trump has is the power of persuasion.
Mao Tse-Tung would guffaw at such a comparison.
"You have to make all sides happy to be successful, though."
I don't see why.
We don't make all employers or labor activists happy with some states setting up "Right to Work" systems and others, not.
We don't make all sides happy with the present mix of state marijuana laws, most of which now conflict with federal law.
We don't make all sides happy on the issue of capital punishment. That some states do execute convicted murderers makes some voters, living in or outside those states, livid.
The definitions and legal treatment of homicide differs from state to state with wrinkles for "Castle Doctrine" and "Stand Your Ground" and "with special circumstances" and "aggravated" and "Felony Homicide" not to mention Juror's Unwritten Laws about one spouses killing another if discovered in infidelity.
Rhetorically, I'd propose that abortion be classified as a special category of homicide and state laws address the various circumstances -- each state developing unique statute and case law -- leaving the feds no more role in abortion than it does in murder, generally.
So Trump thinks it will take a little longer to bring Americans together on abortion than to bring Russia and Ukraine together on peace.
The problem with abortion is the sheer moral depravity involved in advocating for it. You have an abortion, ever? You can never, ever admit to yourself that what you did was kill a baby. Because of that, the people who have had them are morally invested in "the right to an abortion".
I have never offered to donate bone marrow or a kidney and I’m sure there are people who are dying right now because mine has not been made available to them.
But I do not consider myself morally depraved or responsible for their deaths. I believe that’s because I am not a misogynist who thinks that women should have less rights over their uterus than I have over my own biological organs.
I am also not a theocrat who believes that fetuses should be more privileged in being entitled to a “right” to other people’s organs (such as a uterus and placenta) that no other organ recipients are entitled to.
But thanks for the moralizing. It makes the pro-choice case (which is winning every time it’s put to the vote) easier and easier to make each time we hear it.
You can choose to die on this hill claiming your position is the only moral one. It is your privilege to do that.
The same choice was presented with slavery, then diversity, then trans/cisgender, now other classes in the transgender spectrum, and trans/socials, too.
Remind me again........why is killing babies a popular political issue???
Rich said...
"@alanc709: I stand in awe at any serious attempt to make Trump out to be a rational actor making calculated political decisions in the interest of others."
A statement that is breathtaking in it's total unselfawareness, but also in the bredth of it's idiocy. In its Happy Madison like contempt for the history and speeches of Doinald Trump. Rich lives in a realm that is unknown to anyone who is even minimally adept at logic and reason.
I think we've reached a milestone.
Trump knows the Never-Trump portion of the GOP will vote for Biden, Harris and Fetterman or anybody else with a functioning heart yet near brain dead. He can't appeal to the irrational. He is already peeling away black voters and will gain more thanks to Abbott and DeSantis showing black inner city voters what the border is all about. Trump doesn't do that bad with latinos. And of course everyone thinks heterosexual white men are a lock for Trump.
So how to pull off women from Biden? Appeal to them like no other politician wants to do. They won't because their financial backers won't have it. But Trump doesn't want those backers, so he will go there, and if he peels off women from at least voting in the General for Biden, well that would be yuge! Bonus, he actually is good with the policy but probably knows there is really nothing he can do about it (DNC and GOP won't agree, and it is up to the states now).
Political unions for all consenting adults, and younger some advocate, or the binary bigotry born in political congruence ("=") under the Pro-Choice ethical religion?
With regard to this this issue, there are, on every possible side, people whose salaries are dependent upon there being conflict, so conflict there will be.
If the issue were put to a majority vote for the country as a whole (i.e., not segmented into regions) I think the result would be:
First trimester: Yes, no questions asked.
Second trimester: Only if a doctor says medically necessary.
Third trimester: No, unless there are extraordinary circumstances (rape, incest, life of the mother).
And yes, that's a morally incoherent compromise. But biology has given us a morally entangled system and there's nothing we can do about that. Any set of rules we invent on this issue will produce some morally repugnant outcomes. The only "solution" is a political compromise that in the eyes of the greatest number of people does the least amount of harm. Unfortunately our politics has completely lost the idea of compromises in which nobody gets their own way, everyone is generally unhappy with the compromise, and we deal with it and get on with our lives.
Big contributing factor to this lack of compromise is the idea that there are lots of "everybody wins" solutions out there that just need to be tried ("You can reduce carbon emissions AND have a higher standard of living" is an example).
In my dream of an Article V convention, you'd get a "bodily integrity" Amendment produced by a "strange bedfellows" coalition of pro-abortion and anti-v@xx people that codified the trimester compromise and prohibited coerced medical treatments. Hey, I'm allowed to dream.
LLR Rich: "Trump's promises aren't the real story, the real story is that anyone believes anything he says.
Rhetorical flexibility is easy if you don't have any principles."
I am still basking in the afterglow of LLR Rich's serial debunked lies regarding Musk's Starlink network and Ukraine.
Rhetorical flexibility and lacking principles indeed.
Trump is a Democrat, always has been. There is nothing stopping a Democrat from running on a Republican ticket. Manchin is a Republican running on a Democrat ticket.
If this is a surprise to any of you, consider yourself of victim of the Dem controlled media.
Trump is lots of things. Conservative, is not one of those things.
I have serious doubts the Dems would even pretend to sit down with Trump to hammer out a legislative abortion solution. Abortion has always been the wedge Dems need to divide the voters. Democrats want the constant verbal battle, a solution robs them of a huge campaign issue.
Immigration is also an issue, Dems need. Not a solution. Trump was talking about DACA and Dreamers in 2016 and 2017. AGAIN, Pelosi ignored Trumps advances to get relief for illegals in the USA. The Democrats need the evil immigrant hating Republican Party to get voters hitting the lever for the empathetic Dems. Trump leading the way for negotiating a solution, expose the lie that is the Democrat Narrative.
Stop debating Trumps comment like the Dems are an honest participants. Pelosi etal, are perfectly fine with losing the abortion on demand rather than give Trump a win. Just like the prefer all the illegals stay hidden, than negotiate a solution.
Remember, Democrats MUST govern from a position of an emergency. If there is no emergency Dems will just declare an emergency (gun ban in Arizona)
"Rhetorically, I'd propose that abortion be classified as a special category of homicide and state laws address the various circumstances -- each state developing unique statute and case law -- leaving the feds no more role in abortion than it does in murder, generally."
The left cannot stand the thought of something like this. Everybody must all do (or be prohibited from doing) the same thing.
This is because the left tends to have crappy and unworkable ideas. They ignore (or lie about) how incentives will motivate human beings when it suits their purposes. This is why they support one-size-fits-all federal policies, as that makes it easier to hide their policy failures. Allowing the various states to develop their own policies would risk exposing the craziness in leftist states to more sane and workable ideas elsewhere.
Now, this is the point where leftists will argue that their ideas are better. It's possible- stranger things have happened- but you have to ask yourself... if they really think so, why would they feel threatened by those who would disagree and want to go in a different direction? You know the answer.
Maybee 11:58,
When I think back on my time in " Old Rescue," as they name it now, I think of the line from Yeats: "My glory was I had these friends."
And I might lose them all over this question of a ban but I think that "banning" late-term abortions rather than "allowing" early abortions is the way forward. This opinion is very much based on reading posts and comments on this site from our hostess and the commenters.
As the debate now stands the controversy is similar to the one over slavery in the Constitution in the early days. Was it a temporary exception carved out for what was thought to be a dying institution or was permission given to to hold slaves forever? Similarly, are we doing what we can today to save some of the unborn from an agonizing death by banning late term abortions or are we allowing early abortions? I think a ban would avoid a dangerous ambiguity.
Then we try to persuade those think that because being human is a becoming all our lives that this means that those who are very young are less human. No, they're becoming and we are becoming; they're human and we are human.
That's pretty impressive, wildswan.
I never gave much thought to anti-abortion/pro-life Euros (assuming some of those notably decadent folks participate).
Did you notice and care to comment on any differences in national attitudes? Any difference in your reception by the publics and the authorities?
I'm genuinely curious.
Actually, the state referenda on abortion show that the majority of Americans oppose any restrictions on abortion even in deeply red states.
What transparent BS. If voters are offered a heartbeat law, yes or no, and vote it down, that is patently not the same thing as "oppos[ing] any restrictions on abortion."
Try to argue honestly, can't you?
"Try to argue honestly, can't you?"
Good luck with that.
Back when abortion was a federal issue, as decreed by the Court, Republicans said it should be up to the states. Now that it is a state concern, it turns out that many of them actually do want abortion to be restricted by the national government. Both parties are extreme on the issue.
Trump is right that some compromise would be good, but now it will absolutely never be achieved. More and more states (including my own Arizona) will go permanently blue because Republicans insist on purity on abortion. When there are only two choices - no abortion or unrestricted abortion - the public will choose "unrestricted." Democrats know this, and will spend a lot of money to ensure that absolutist Republicans will be on the ticket. Democrats will be the biggest donors to Kari Lake's senate campaign.
Trump probably knows, as Althouse concedes, that a Federal ban on (or permission for) abortion is likely unconstitutional, but that doesn’t matter for purposes of his political positioning, which I think is mostly brilliant. It’s also what most people want, and if he champions this approach, he will either (a) expose the extreme position of Democrats, or (b) achieve a legislative compromise, which will likely be overruled by the Supreme Court (correctly, I think), in which case he still gets all the credit. In either case, it’s a win for Trump.
Trump probably knows, as Althouse concedes, that a Federal ban on (or permission for) abortion is likely unconstitutional, but that doesn’t matter for purposes of his political positioning, which I think is mostly brilliant. It’s also what most people want, and if he champions this approach, he will either (a) expose the extreme position of Democrats, or (b) achieve a legislative compromise, which will likely be overruled by the Supreme Court (correctly, I think), in which case he still gets all the credit. In either case, it’s a win for Trump.
"The only "solution" is a political compromise"
Not really. In most of the country, progs can get their way and get enough votes to kill up to the moment of birth, possibly beyond. At the federal level, they can politic the issue as long as there are any red state holdouts, just until the GOP succumbs, as it must.
"Dobbs freed up all of us--our country--to have a rational discussion about abortion and, like virtually every other western country, reach a reasonable compromise."
Well, but US progs figure they can get more than their EU cousins. They are not interested in a rational discussion, they are interested in winning. Winning means any abortion, for any reason, at any time, ef that baby. Trump is now offering most abortions, for any reason, in early pregnancy, as an opening bid. Not good enough, Donald, gotta raise your offerr.
And why negotiate at all when your base wants any abortion on demand, you can achieve it in most of the country, and use it as a perpetual wedge issue to squash the GOP elsewhere and in presidential elections? Win-win-win.
Dobbs exposes the failure of the pro-life movement. The GOP has an existential choice to make: stick with a nominal pro-life position and lose forever, or move toward a Trumpian "compromise" and hope the pro-lifers won't abandon you, knowing that in practice the compromise means surrender.
I'm not for a complete ban and I don't like bans at 6 weeks. But politically, pushing the Dems to admit they don't believe in any legal limits is the play.
+1
More and more states (including my own Arizona) will go permanently blue because Republicans insist on purity on abortion.
If true, I says fuck'em. If they're such a braindead social liberals they'll ignore every other issue to have unlimited abortion then welcome to the one-party Democrat state. You can have unlimited abortions with unlimited immigration, unlimited crime, unlimited banning of gasoline cares, unlimited foreign wars, unlimted inflation, and soon or later unlimited taxes.
But you'll be happy because you can kill unborn babies at 9 months. That'll show those Goddamn Prolifers.
Talking about Abortion is a Democrat issue. That's why NBC-DNC news asked Trump about it for 10 minutes. its why Brent Baird brought it up in the Foxnews debate and kept going back to it.
Trump is trying to position himself in the best place he can politically. His real position? I'd guess he'd leave it up to the states. But that can't fly during a campaign. So he's going for legalized abortion at 15 weeks as talking point.
“The author is correct. The Dems are going to sink the GOP on the abortion issue. That's how that porn star north of Richmond will win her seat. Just watch.”
I disagree, if Trump, as expected, gets the nomination. The Dems desperately want the issue, because it sews up a major constituency for them - white upper middle class cis women. The Dems desperately want this as an issue to distract from how horribly they have governed under Biden. If the election ends up revolving around whether or not you feel we are better or worse off, after 4 years of Biden, or 4 years of Trump, Trump walks away with it, even given the expected level of election fraud on the Dems part.
The Dems are saying: “But, but, but, Abortion!” That is their big chance at surviving. Trump isn’t buying in. He already nuked nation wide abortion on demand with Dobbs, by getting three pro-life Justices confirmed. He refuses to get bogged down in the abortion discussion, which is smart. Anymore, after Dobbs, it is a fringe issue. It is now a state issue, where it belongs. Much more worrying to most voters are the state of the economy, law and order, millions of illegal aliens flooding into the country, massive endemic corruption in DC, a runaway Deep State, etc.
@wildswan: compelling story...
Now imagine Biden, the great Catholic, being capable of carrying on one tenth of this conversation. Or any reporter asking, or being permitted to ask, any such questions. Of our President.
All the Democratic people are chanting in unison that the Democrats are special because they're (um, finally) supporting impeaching Menendez. Some of the ham-fisted ones are feigning amazement at the discovery that water is also wet. The most common refrain in the NYT comments is the Democrat declaring himself a Democrat who voted for Menendez a million times and had no idea but woke up this morning rarin' to indict because Democrats are good, Republicans are bad.
But what have they done about abortion? What did they do about Ground Zero Mosque Bob, whose corruption was revealed by his own Party two decades ago? They put him in charge of frigging Senate Foreign Relations. That's like giving a shoplifter the keys to the store. It was literally insane.
It was so insane Capitol reporters got whiplash trying to ignore it.
The bigotry of soft expectations is clearly riding the Democratic column.
Menendez is the clown car enabling the FBI to ferry the Bidens to political immunity, while "principled" Ben Cardin warms Bob's seat for a second time in Foreign Relations. Trump isn't particularly normal, but he is extremely normal compared to Biden and the Democrats, and he sounds entirely normal here.
If the Republican Party were to go along with guaranteeing a RIGHT TO KILL at any time, it will be the end of the party.
Maybe it is fine for Democrats and progressives and law professors to embrace the same type of evils that the Democrat Party embraced in the 19th Century in reducing human beings to chattel property, but the Republican Party was created to end all that.
And a sizeable proportion of people who now vote Republican will say "to hell with the Republicans" if they ever tried to support KILLING innocent prenatal babies.
Trump: "They don’t want to kill a baby in the seventh month..."
OK, Mr. Trump, when do you think that it is acceptable to "kill a baby," to use your words? Do you really think it should be permissible to "kill a baby" at 14 weeks, six days? How is that any different than the legal structure throughout the U.S. under Roe?
Or do you really think that this dispute over KILLING BABIES was all about some separation of powers argument? That pro-lifers just didn't like judges imposing a killing regime on the nation, that they wanted legislatures to do it?
The pro-life movement hasn't fought for 50 years just to have more of the same for the next 50 years.
THANK YOU wildswan. You're a hero.
It looks to me like there will be a national law proscribing abortion after a set number of weeks, but that will not prevent the states from having a lower limit, or completely banning it.
It looks to me like there will be a national law proscribing abortion after a set number of weeks, but that will not prevent the states from having a lower limit, or completely banning it.
All Trump has to do is promote a ruling of "15 weeks except for rape, incest or the life of the mother" THEN keep talking about the economy and immigration. All Dobbs did was put the idea of abortion to the citizens of the state and they *can* change it. Red state Kansas voted to keep abortion legal, so every state can do that.
I'm pro-choice, but the clinics are awful. After looking at the experiences of PP and other abortion workers, I no longer donate to abortion causes. The clinics are filthy, the doctors usually have revoked licenses from other states, and they manipulate records to hide that they do abortions into the third trimester.
Here's one of I got the info.
https://abortionworker.com/
Lem the misspeller said...
"Before Roe was dismembered, I always referred to it as "abortion on demand". I have no problem with liberal states agreeing to something they can live with, and the conservative states doing the same.
How about a Post-Roe Convention. A two-day gathering of academics, politicians and clergy to discuss suggestions for moving forward."
Not likely to happen, though it could easily turn into a brawl. The Left (not just the radicals but also the squishy moderates) see abortion as a means of population control, and for that reason it's a sacred rite and a holy obligation. They won't say that quiet part out loud, but if they come to the point of hegemony, it won't be a matter of individual choice or reproductive health; rather, an act of patriotism.
Mark. That's one hell of a black and white cartoon you have running in your head about what you think the right is all about.
But at least we're making progress. You now understand that abortion is about babies. Actual human babies. That's a big first step. Now tell me. Whan does that babies natural right to life, liberty and happiness beguin?
"Whan does that babies natural right to life, liberty and happiness beguin?"
When he registers as a Democrat, no doubt.
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