Writes David French, in "The Great Hypocrisy of the Pro-Life Movement" (NYT). He's looking at the reaction to the Alabama Supreme Court decision that treated IVF embryos like in utero embryos under the state’s wrongful death statute.
Pro-lifers "caved, almost instantly, on a core philosophical element of the movement — the incalculable value of every human life no matter how small — and the movement is now standing by or even applauding as Trump is turning the Republican Party into a pro-choice party, one more moderate than the Democrats, but pro-choice still...."
When push came to shove, the pro-life position was either secondary to other values or it genuinely was punitively tribal — enthusiastically aimed straight at the supposedly licentious left but ready to be abandoned the instant the commitment to unborn children might endanger the larger MAGA political project....
The older I get, the more I’m convinced that we simply don’t know who we are — or what we truly believe — until our values carry a cost....
This reminds me of how I felt when Democrats had to choose between feminism and Bill Clinton. You learn the true priority.
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67 comments:
"the" true priority is that a party is made of many factions with their own priorities
when the party has a majority, the priority still might not have one
French, concern-trolling again. If you want to govern, you have to win.
David French finally wakes up to the fact it was never about morality, 'pro life' politicians were in it for donations and votes.
"ready to be abandoned the instant the commitment to unborn children might endanger the larger MAGA political project"
What is this project exactly? Our condescending superiors seem to know.
"This reminds me of how I felt when Democrats had to choose between feminism and Bill Clinton. You learn the true priority."
Well, the priority in politics is power.
Anyway, prolifers aren't exacty abandoning the commitment, they are realizing they are a small minority in most places, and without converting the public away from its preference for killing, at women's complete discretion, the continual pursuit of max prolife legislation entails a total loss.
but ready to be abandoned the instant the commitment to unborn children might endanger the larger MAGA political project...
Replace "larger MAGA political project" with "the nation" and he's not wrong. French is a Never Trumper, who generally put their "principles" above the nation's needs. (I do believe he's a true pro-lifer.)
Yes, the left (and feminists specifically) did the same when it stuck with Bill Clinton.
Nina Burleigh, who covered the Clinton White House for Time:
“I’d be happy to give him a blow job just to thank him for keeping abortion legal."
Roe v. Wade maintained a phony debate that both sides exploited for votes for 50 years. The end of that era has forced a lot of people to think about their real positions, and this takes time.
I see the US as eventually landing on an EU-style moderate universal abortion policy or having some states with highly liberal (i.e., partial-birth, near-infanticide) policies while others land on moderate EU-style policies. This is because the core pro-life religious political faction is dying off and/or losing badly in recent elections.
Over time abortion laws stands to moderate, as the future is owned by parents who have many children, and children trained to have more children. The future is not owned by sterile transgendered people, pill-loving partiers and swingers, and those who avoid children to minimize global warming.
Forcing that reckoning, on both sides of the issue, was the primary advantage I saw in SCOTUS overturning Roe.
Too much money and power was conferred upon those who benefitted most by perpetuating a federal battle for the "soul" of the nation.
Forcing that reckoning, on both sides of the issue, was the primary advantage I saw in SCOTUS overturning Roe.
Too much money and power was conferred upon those who benefitted most by perpetuating a federal battle for the "soul" of the nation.
David French's primary goal is to undermine Trump. I dont even like Trump but I have found French's rhetoric to be childishly obvious.
I've been pro-life my whole life too and while Trump is not really pro life he also appointed SC justices and otherwise pushed back against entrenched bureaucratic powers. Probably doing more for prolife causes than a lot of rhetoric-for-their-own-ambition columnists and politicians have done since RvW.
The prolife movement is very real. But it also isn't uniform. Like all political sides there are radicals, pragmatists, and fakers who don't believe just want to get influence.
Trump is likely the latter on this issue but he's a good salesman who actually does stuff to make his case. At least a lot more than just demeaning his onetime allies to an audience that hates them. French seems a lot like bad sitcom trope of the nerdy kid who gets invited to sit at the popular kids table and has to mock his old friends to get more liked.
I doubt David French HAD been a member of the pro-life movement his entire adult life.
If French really were as pro-life as he claims, he wouldn't be trying to hamstring the pro-life movement like this. He's left wondering? It sounds like he's walking away from it because it's not living up to his standards. That's not what a principled pro-life person would do.
I guess we've entered the purity test stage of the pro-life campaign. Only the most extreme need apply. And then, when it's over and we've accomplished so much less than we thought we would, we can all point our fingers at somebody else.
Aggie said...French, concern-trolling again. If you want to govern, you have to win.
What so many purists resist comprehending: giving up something to get something is better than going for everything and getting nothing. Like it or not, if you really want to save lives, you need to stop trying to save all of them at once.
The pro-life movement needs to understand that they lost.
Death won.
When solid red states vote pro-abortion - you learn and you adjust.
""I’d been a part of the pro-life movement my entire adult life... But now I’m left wondering how much of the movement was truly real.""
This is just the Uniparty using an issue that is tangential to the function of Government at most to divide the populace over something they should be working out amongst themselves.
"Conservatives" have never really figured out how a two edged sword works.
French is a dipshit propagandist. I haven't heard any respectable people on the right or "n the movement" praise the Alabama SC decision. It's been widely ridiculed. Trump vociferously mocked it and expressly specified we have to stand up for life, saying IVF represents life. Does French praise that clarity? No he smears Trump for recognizing he reality that the fight is state by state now. Somehow, moderate conservatives French is mocking being a moderate conservative on this issue.
How unsurprising from America's Pravda. How run-of-the-mill mealy-mouth of French. Did you ever see this kind of criticism of Romney for being pro-abortion before suddenly being a "severe conservative" candidate? No. French didn't write that column. Once more we are treated to the "he's just not our kind, Dear" fresh take from French.
Fuck off, loser.
David French projects smug arrogance that whatever he thinks must be right. Yet he is very often wrong about things he believes are self evident. Makes people think maybe he's wrong about other things too.
Even with all those words he has failed to persuade enough people to see things as does. Maybe he hasn't used enough words, or used the wrong ones, or failed to arrange the words in a way that convinced enough people. Who knows? He's still got time. Love embryos, Trump in prison. We get it.
But his observation from this is that the older he gets he realizes that other people don't know who they are because they wont join him on the far end of that zealotry branch he's on.
Ah David French....we can always count on David French to do his best to get democrats elected.
David French finally wakes up...
Not seeing that at all. Check your work, Dude.
Not having the ability to read NYT, my knee-jerk reaction is to reject French's analysis since I have rarely found him reliable when reporting on conservatism. All the pro-life people I know (and I know a lot) would never compromise for political expediency. And the Catholics (the real ones, not the Pelosi/Biden ones) oppose IVF, knowing the moral compromise being made. Any my opinion about Bill Clinton is that it was the support for abortion that made his strange bedfellows. It is probably the single most determinative factor in America's voting choices.
It's like slavery amidst the revolutionary war, diversity in an increasingly segregated nation, war and ethnic Springs, transgender spectrum and political congruence, redistributive change through progressive prices, science far and away from observable and repeatable, selective prosecution/persecution, nationwide insurrections, Capitol punishment, etc. Six weeks to legal viability. Fetus... baby steps.
Roe v Wade removed the battle over abortion to the court system- the necessary first step to stopping abortion was always going to be overturning that court ruling; and getting that ruling overturned necessarily involved winning the White House and getting SCOTUS nominees through the Senate.
There isn't going to be a ban on abortion in the U.S.- anyone who thinks there is going to be a ban is an idiot, like David French- you fight the battles you can win. The battle that can be won here is to restrict the practice after the first three to four months in all but the most conservative states (where it might be banned completely- still unlikely over the long term) or the most leftist states (where it will probably be allowed up to the first month outside the womb). A federal law addressing abortion runs afoul of the same arguments used against Roe v Wade by people like, you guessed it, David French.
What Trump did is the smart political play if you support restricting abortion as much as is politically possible- a goal David French used to have. If Trump doesn't win in November, you are pretty much guaranteed to have a federal law eventually passed by the Democrats that not only codifies Roe v Wade but makes it legal to abort babies up to 9 months gestation. So, David French can take his "principled stand" and shove right up his sorry ass.
French’s highest priority, like most people’s, is self preservation.
It’s interesting to watch when people’s values collide with each other. It’s like watching a playoff game. Which value will win.
Self-preservation has won the most. Sometimes people with children value the preservation of their children over their selves.
Feminism isn’t a high value for liberals. Picking Clinton over feminism was an easy choice for most of them.
They’ll let boys beat the shit out of girls to keep power. They aren’t JK Rowling.
Pro-lifers "caved, almost instantly, on a core philosophical element of the movement — the incalculable value of every human life no matter how small — and the movement is now standing by or even applauding as Trump is turning the Republican Party into a pro-choice party, one more moderate than the Democrats, but pro-choice still...."
We didn't "cave" on anything. This is simply a pragmatic lesser of two evils decision. The reality in America is abortion is here to stay. Setting limits at 16-weeks is much better than up until the moment of birth.
Some of the unrestricted late term crap Democrats and feminists are pushing is barbaric. Up until the moment of birth, justified by the empty headed statement "it's between a woman and her doctor" is turning a blind eye to evil.
MAGA is turning a blind eye to the evil.
Oh brother. Most people haven't thought about IVF deeply. What a jerk. Anyone can see that I've been pretty critical of IVF here at Althouse, but I don't have contempt for people who are fine with IVF and still consider themselves prolife. It's taken me years to get here. Have some grace French. Isn't that a Christian virtue?
I mostly disagree with David French although I also understand his point. If pro-life activists insist too strongly on what is admittedly at the core of their concer - that a human being deserves legal protection from conception - they can lose everything. "There should be a federal ban on abortion up to the moment of birth". Good luck with that. And what happens if and when the opposition is in power?
There has been some real debate over the extent to which abortion tipped the 2022 midterms to the Democrats. It seems clear most Americans are neither against nor in favor of any and all legal elective abortion. If one demands $100 you might end up with nothing. Even if you think that's what you should get. Ask for $50 and you might end up with $50.
This morning I watched a YouTube video by Razorfist who addressed this. He states clearly that he is more anti-abortion than anyone. And yet (1) supports states deciding the issue and (2) defends Trump's recent statement on the issue. I was a pro-life activist in college. And I agree with Razorfist.
Alabama shows how even staunch pro-life activists are reluctant to apply the logic behind the movement too consistently. Okay fine we won't try to ban IVF. "Hypocrisy!" some cry. Hypocrisy is not the same as inconsistency, a point many fail to recognize. Sometimes one needs to be inconsistent in order to receive some of what one wants, to see some progress toward the ultimate goal. It's called compromise. It's annoying. And sometimes necessary.
David French partially wakes up to the fact it was never about morality, 'pro life' and 'pro-abortion' politicians were in it for donations and votes and never about addressing the issue. Thank you, Dobbs.
The worst thing Roe did, even worse than excusing male-dominated legislatures from responsibility, was to free men generally from legal and moral responsibility for their actions. Oops, sorry babe, get back to me here on the couch after you've had it scraped. Legislatures long ago should've explicitly assigned at least equal legal and financial responsibility to men for conception. Unsurprisingly, male-dominated legislatures never got around to that discussion, did they?
Mark said...
"David French finally wakes up to the fact it was never about morality, 'pro life' politicians were in it for donations and votes."
1. Facts not in evidence. There may have been some politicians who were without principle, but many, if not most, had moral and medical objections to killing babies.
2. Your accusations are more fitting for pro-abortion politicians who continue to frame the issue as reproductive health (even though abortion, an invasive surgical procedure, carries its own threats to reproduction and other systems of the mother's body). Also, framing it as 'pro-choice' when, as a matter of course, it's more like 'pro-Hobson's choice' - Planned Parenthood leans toward the abortion option as do most independent women's health centers. Hillary Clinton's "safe, legal, and rare" mantra was a cover for elevation of abortion to a sacred rite and a holy obligation.
Don't worry guys. When the libsticks take over and pack the Supreme Court there is no way they're going to institute a Country-Wide gun ban.
David French has mastered the art of sucking up to his bosses.
The professional grifters in the Republican party attached themselves to grassroots movements like lampreys onto fish and just suck the life out of them or in their case their money and passion. The Direct Mail fundraising and types are probably the saddest people of all about Row v Wade being overturned. Whether it's Second Amendment issues or abortion rights or the Tea Party it doesn't matter. There's some for-profit outfit out there that will immediately clamp onto it and then squeeze every drop of money out of it until exsanguinated and who will then kick it aside and move on to another victim. The only thing those creeps are sad about is that one of their major fundraising grift is over.
David French--always looking for the next thing to get wee wee'd up about. But a hack writer scraping out a living at the NYT has to keep looking for the next thing. So there is that.
What we believe is not necessarily consistent with political reality. Pro-lifers will never have absolute bans to include IVF. Baby killers will never have unrestricted abortion.
The goal for pro-lifers, particularly Christians, ought to to be to keep the corrupting, amoral influence of Democrats out of office. Abortion is a phony Democrat/media issue that Republicans as usual are being sucked into. States will, and have, enacted abortion laws ranging from restrictive to lenient. Abortion is a billion dollar industry. Planned Parenthood, for example, can afford to subsidize the travel of women to lenient states. It won't get any better for the baby killers than that and they know it. This tempest in a teapot is intended to exploit gullible women.
It's working and we're toast.
What Paddy O said sums up my thoughts exactly.
If French really cared about the preservation of unborn life, he wouldn't be working tirelessly to get Democrats, who are abortion absolutists, elected.
David French is an idiot.
His logic suggests that the British troops at Dunkirk should not have evacuated. Instead, they should have turned around and charged into the face of the overwhelming Nazi military machine. Anything less than that, means you don't oppose the Nazis. (According to shallow intellects.)
Instead, the next Presidential election will be binary (essentially). Anyone that thinks Biden will be more pro-life than Trump is an idiot or a liar.
Joe Biden, America's Putin said...
The pro-life movement needs to understand that they lost.
Death won.
When solid red states vote pro-abortion - you learn and you adjust.
Death did not win. People decided that the government was not the best tool for this job.
The Church is the right tool for this job.
I support efforts to help women make the right choice. That means building a society full of citizens who do the right thing and don't need the government to force them to it.
Why are you people all in favor of the government having more power and the church having less power in our society?
Yes, Rick 67, I also agree with you and Razorfist (10:12 am).
However, I do not think it is either hypocritical or inconsistent to do so - that is, be pro-life but also support leaving it up to the states and/or agreeing with Trump. I think it is false to depict this as the idealists (pro-lifers) vs. the pragmatic compromisers or hypocrites. That's because (and this is what both sides never seem able to see) this battle is a clash of two fundamental ideals, not one. "Life" (of the baby) vs. "Liberty" (of the woman). Two of the three big ones in the Declaration. There is no formula for balancing these, so it is reality, not pragmatism or hypocrisy, that requires a compromise. And no matter where you compromise, it will entail a tradeoff of ideals. I'd go with about 12 weeks. But that's arbitrary, so I go with the states and Trump.
Up to 12 weeks, it's still killing a human being. I put it bluntly, because I think it would help if pro-choice people honestly admitted that' what it is, and if pro-life people would honestly admit their readiness to cause real pain and limits on the liberty of the woman.
If I were king I would ban all abortions, but we live in a world where you have to make choices.
I know nothing about David French, but he sounds like an absolutist who now wants to virtue signal about how worthless his life has been because he didn’t get everything he wanted.
The states are now going through the messy business of coming up with positions that both sides can accept. Not love, but accept.
That’s how things work in the real world.
Serious Questions:
IF you are "pro-Life", and WANT to save Lives..
Is it better to save some lives, or none?
If you can't pass laws that will save ALL lives.. Should you just let the abortionists win?
[finally] if so, please explain this "logic" to me?
There has always been a Pro-life continuum in the GOP. Some pro-life zealots were the one's taking time out of their lives to protest outside abortion clinics. I could never see myself doing that.
Other GOP voters (Reagan era, Bush era) new very well abortion was never going to be made fully illegal. But, there had to be some resistance against abortion here, abortion there, abortion everywhere. There was enough morality on both sides that pro-choice pretended to support "safe, legal, and RARE."
We could have met in the middle on Safe, Legal, and RARE, until Democrats and Feminists became infanticide zealots and Planned Parenthood got caught selling baby parts.
David French is an arrogant idiot and asshole.
let's look at the counterfactual..
*if* you are a Staunch Pro-Choice advocate..
*if* you TRULY Believe, in The RIGHT: to terminate a pregnancy up to (and past) delivery..
*if* you can't get THAT enacted into law.. Is is better for them to ban ALL abortions?
*if* you are willing to accept 'political' reality.. Were you EVER actually Pro-Choice?
You can be anti-death penalty realizing it is not handed out equally, and prosecutors are in it for the win, not the truth. We've all read the stories about people spending years on death row, only to be proven innocent via modern day DNA technology.
It also matters where you murder. In Texas you're gonna die. In Wisconsin, you can kill and eat people like Jeffrey Dahmer, or run over the Dancing Grannies like Darrell Brooks, and the death penalty isn't even on the table.
That makes me anti-death penalty. Lack of equal distribution.
But, John Wayne Gacy deserved to die. So did Ted Bundy. Darrell Brooks deserves to die.
That makes me pro-death penalty.
David French illustrates his arrogant stupidity with his all or nothing "sell-out" accusations...and it's really just to criticize Trump and his MAGA supporters. French is throwing sand at a barn trying to make any of his criticisms stick.
I see David French is still FOS. And I've never once associated him with the pro-life movement anyway. So who is he to talk?
And for his information, pro-lifers are repudiating Trump and his recent pro-abortion remarks.
This seems like a false dichotomy to me. I don’t understand how a frozen, not implanted embryo is a life at all. I’m moderately pro-choice, but I can at least understand the argument that a fetus in a womb is a potential human life, because it will eventually grow into one. That can never happen with a fertilized embryo until it is implanted in a womb.
Agree with Enigma. We should have had this debate 50 years ago, but SCOTUS stepped in and delayed it , which only makes it more explosive. Trump has stated his case: leave it to the states and they will each find a healthy compromise that may or may not change over time. Removing SCOTUS absolutism is painful but the right thing.
Frenchism, of course, is the belief that the left acts in good faith while the right always has some ulterior motive.
French doesn't get that there's a difference between the politicians and the people. There certainly there were a lot of "pro-life" politicians when it was easy to be pro-life. Roe allowed them to claim pro-life beliefs knowing they would never be able to implement them. Abortion restrictions were always working around the edges and trying to find where the boundaries were. It's like guns. Democrats know they won't be able to ban all guns everywhere so they pass these laws knowing they'll be overturned. They get credit for "doing something" but know they don't have to live with the consequences of their actions, and of course they are protected by guns.
But like other issues, once Roe was rightfully overturned, both sides had to deal with the new politics. Republican politicians are usually pretty slow to realize the politics of an issue have changed. Democrats don't really need to change how they deal with this issue because they are firmly in favor of killing babies who are inconvenient to their mothers' careers and overturning Roe didn't change that. They benefit from the issue being front and center, though.
What French and politicians need to understand, however, is that there are a lot of people who are pro-choice in the early stages of pregnancy and pro-life the rest of the time. Most people aren't absolutists on this issue. Politicians and activists have to deal with that reality now that it matters again. In other words, unless the pro-life movement wants all abortion subsidized and legal all of the time everywhere, they will need to compromise.
French, is Sea Lioning
There are some true believers that abortion is wrong. But Trump and long before him many on the right simply used abortion as a fundraising and vote-getting tool without any real conviction. Now they're stuck with their phony position and facing electoral disaster because the rest of the public is authentically pro-individual choice. Freedom is the American way, not repressive laws based on questionable religious values.
Another thing that is bad for the pro-life crowd is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. They got rid of Roe, and they got some state legislatures to enact draconian anti-abortion measures, but they shouldn't be surprised if other states go the other way and allow abortions after the restrictions offered in Roe. Or if citizens enact choice amendments that overrule the extreme anti-abortion legislation. Roe was good because it was based on science; and it should be the law of the land again.
I am not going to read this. David French's entire bit now is to declare how perfectly righteous he is compared to all those other Christians and conservatives that have disappointed him so, while also appealing to the far-left New York Times readership as their harmless pet. The man's a cross between a Pharisee and a whore. The only question is whether he has always been like this and it was a grift, or if Trump broke him mentally.
Roe v. Wade was bad law. It was obviously bad law when it was issued, it was obviously bad law when it is reversed, and it is obviously bad law now. The legal justification was nothing, basically "we want this" and "we want to stop the debate," neither of which are legal or Constitutional arguments. Legal scholars spent decades trying to come up with an alternate legal theory that might actually be based on the Constitution to prop up Roe, and they failed because there is no justification. Not everything is a Constitutional right and not everything is up to the federal government to decide. Has the result been messy? Yes. The Constitution does not exist to make everything perfect. It's the rules we have to abide. If the Supreme Court is not going to abide, then it undermines the entire document.
Trump and long before him many on the right simply used abortion as a fundraising and vote-getting tool without any real conviction. Now they're stuck with their phony position and facing electoral disaster because the rest of the public is authentically pro-individual choice. Freedom is the American way, not repressive laws based on questionable religious values.
Rich is projecting again. It's the Democrats who have flogged the abortion issue for votes and (along with Planned Parenthood) fund-raising over the last 50 years. They've also shifted the goalposts, first saying they want abortion "safe, legal, and rare," and now saying the more the better up to the moment of birth, and maybe even after that.
I can't be bothered to read French, but most Republicans are not hard pro-life, just pro-Constitution. Roe v Wade subverted the Constitution, Dobbs set it right and left it to the states. That's the position Trump is taking, and I'm fine with it.
I call BS.
French is one of the biggest tools on the planet.
Just to repeat my earlier point, Friend of the Fish Folk said
"a fetus in a womb is a potential human life, because it will eventually grow into one"
This is the sort of thing I meant about pro-choice people not honestly admitting what they favor. That is, a fetus is a human life, not a "potential" human life. This bit about potential is actually a sort of Aristotelian notion of things. Or to put it more plainly, a fetus is only a bit less "potentially" a full human being than a two-year-old is. Or a twelve-year-old. They all have a way to go before fully maturing into adult humans. As I said earlier, I am okay with saying the very early stages of human life are so limited in human quality that the liberty rights of the mother can outweigh that life. It's a cruel choice no matter what. Make it and live with it.
David French is an idiot.
A long time ago, I was a spokesperson for a pro-choice coalition. Yes, and that is the reason I'm pro-life. Because, unlike David French, who does nothing but waggle his poor adopted baby around, I felt an obligation to witness abortions (something not one other pro-choice or pro-life person in my circles has ever done, save one, who flipped out and quit after spending a day trying to re-asssemble arms and legs and heads and organs in a litttle tray to make sure they got them all -- in a fairly early second trimester abortion).
I've seen first, second, and third-trimester abortions. I sat with the girls in a third trimester clinic and listened to them (this was Atlanta), visibly pregnant, two day procedures, already mothers at 16, talk about how 'if he was gonna be with his new momma I'm gonna kill this thing.' I've helped them to the bathroom to extract the contents. I've rubbed their shoulders as they watched the center's one video, Pretty Woman, as they talked and talked about what they could do with that shopping trip. They were 14, 15, 16, and if anyone piciked them up, it was usually their pimp. They had no fathers and barely had mothers. They were alone.
The other clinics for earlier abortions were tidy, sterile, affirming: the women were urged to forget.
I've interviewed all the still-alive signatories for Doe v. Bolton, which was suppposed to be Roe v. Wade -- there was a last-minute switch. These doctors and judges all told me the same story -- the rich girls could fly to New York; the poor girls could go to over a barber shop down by the black colleges and get a chop job, or go to Valdosta for a better one.
These men dealt with women who had ten kids before there were social services or access to birth control, and drunk husbands who beat them into the emergency room. They couldn't afford shoes, let someone else to feed. They sure couldn't say no to sex.
They dealt with women in the worst types of fear, women raped, women raped by their their fathers. White and black. They dealt with segregation. They never, to a person, imagined iabortion rights would ever, ever come to this. Some wanted to expand the hospital board system, where a woman appeared before a judge or three doctors to explain their need. Almost never denied, I was told.
I care where you stand on this issue, but I don't think you're entitled to your opinion until you watch Gosnell or Unplanned or even Citizen Ruth. Also any of the dozens of tough pro-choice movies. Obviously, you can't observe real abortions like I could. It always amazed me how my pro-life companions, bar a courageous few, even confronted the subject itself. Thank God I am saved.
The Democrats weren't pro-Clinton in '98, they weren't going to give Republicans a victory, just as they tried to make W lose in Iraq.
@ James K: 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.
"David French partially wakes up to ..." there is another way to bash Trump.
As they say,"In other words water is wet".
Tina Trent's account is quite moving. Her revulsion to abortion seems focused upon the grisly reality. Most of us think about it as if it was accomplished by magical abortion waves, bloodlessly and soundlessly. If that were so, should it change our views on abortion.
The Roe decision seemed to me obviously wrong as a matter of constitutional law, federalism, and separation of powers. That said, I've been inconsistent in my approach to the way I think the practice should be regulated.
My current view is that, if men and women really want the right to kill their fetuses, and they are using hygienic procedures, where is the government interest in protecting the unborn innocent fetus? Let's be coldly cynical and have fewer offspring of baby killers. We shouldn't deceive ourselves about what we collectively are, though.
Rich
but they shouldn't be surprised if other states go the other way and allow abortions after the restrictions offered in Roe.
Roe never "offered" anything. The problem Roe created, was states set their own Abortion law, then every law got appealed to SCOTUS. Dobbs rightly said its always been a State issue, since the constitution never mentions abortion.
I tried to read the essay while pretending it wasn't written by David French so I would minimize my bias against his argument, but his own anti-Trump bias and his self righteousness made it impossible to do. For one thing, I don't believe for a second that Republican politicians in Alabama and elsewhere acted to change legislation in response to the Alabama decision simply to preserve MAGA and Trump. They did it to save their own careers and power. Let's face it, most people have given very little thought to the fate of the unused IVF babies, except maybe Catholic pro-lifers. I even wonder if the average person realizes that IVF results in surplus embryos left in a state of suspension.
The other thing that irked me about his essay was that he maintains he has always been actively pro-life and implies that he is more pro-life than these politicians he is criticizing, but at the same time says he is grateful for IVF. How can you be grateful for a procedure that results in the creation of life that will be ultimately destroyed? The number of surplus embryos created with IVF outnumbers the ones that are successfully implanted. It seems hypocritical to me. He's really not much different than the politicians he calls out.
Also, since when is the pro-life movement defined as the Republican party? When I think of "pro-life movement" I do not think "Republican politicians." Instead, I think of the people from my parish who stand outside abortion clinics praying the rosary, or who volunteer at pregnancy crisis centers, or with Walking with Moms in Need. It makes me wonder if he was ever really a part of the pro-life movement, or just someone who aligned with politicians and their ilk who supported it politically.
I am torn. I can’t decide which fake token conservative NYT opinion writer I hate more: French or Brooks. Let’s call it a tie.
When the libsticks take over and pack the Supreme Court there is no way they're going to institute a Country-Wide gun ban.
Are you really that stupid? Comparing a non-existent right to an amendment to the Constitution?
MAGA political project = normal people
When Dobbs overturned Roe, David French didnt celebrate. He had "Mixed Feelings". Why? Because the "Christian Conservatives" and "Prolifers" wouldn't listen to reason and would go to extremes and try to outlaw every abortion, even those for rape and incest.
Now, he's Mr. Purity test, upset the christians and Rightwingers are being too pragmatic. The only consistency is his attacks on Conservative Christians and Trump supporters. Which is just what you'd exepct from a man who was secretly taking Google/Big Tech Cash and defended them, when they censored the Right.
Rev. French is just as fake and hypocritical in other religious matters. He's constantly attacking other Christians (Conservatives of course) in the most vicious manner possible, and then crying about how "hateful" and UnChristian they are when they fire back. I won't even go into his bloodthirsty neo-connery and love of Israel and how that squares with his bleating about "Love thy Neighbor". The man has mote in his eye the size of NJ, but as Jesus said....
He is the biggest grifter and hypocrite on the fake Nevertrumper "Right". And there's a lot of competition for that award.
"The Constitution does not exist to make everything perfect."
Progressives have a problem with (read: can't get their minds around) the idea that not everybody thinks and wants the same things. Their idea of the Constitution is that it's useful when it supports their goals and should be ignored when it doesn't.
It's not hypocrisy.
It's blind-sided realty - and both sides got it wrong.
When Roe was over-turned at the federal level - it automatically kicked it to the States.
While the left whined, yelled, screamed, melted-down that the end of Roe was a disaster - they had no idea the Supreme Court just handed the pro-death left a huge gift.
meanwhile on the right - (the pro-life right - and some on the pro-life left) celebrations were at hand. Finally - they all said. Roe is gone! Hooray!
Then - something happened. Red states began to vote on the issue - and abortion rights won. In red states.
So - there you have it. Both sides got it wrong.
The Left panicked for nothing.
The Right celebrated - for nothing.
Now the issue is alive and well and a HUGE gift to the left.
The best the GOP can do is face that reality. Instead - Focus on the Southern Border, Masses of illegal entrants allowed in to our nation abusing our asylum system - (the left's plan), Chi com Joe's lies, inflation, and the collapse of our nation.
*fixed
When pro-Lifers admit the need and Pro-Abortionists admit the horror, a compromise becomes possible.
French is just trying to put pro-life advocates off voting for Trump. He's never been a conservative. But for pro-life issue voters, it is Trump or abortion up to the first birthday if Democrats win.
Republicans like Pence, like Lindsey Graham all have taken pains to sabotage Republicans in elections since Hobbs by coming out with hardcore anti-abortion calls.
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