The Pro-Life Dilemma and the Politics of Prudence

[Kamaji]

The Pro-Life Dilemma and the Politics of Prudence

How the pro-life movement remains politically viable

By Josh Hammer
August 11, 2023

Pro-lifers waited 49 grueling years to see the judicial barbarism of Roe v. Wade finally overturned in last year’s blockbuster Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. That ruling, delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, merely re-politicized a hotly contested issue that had been erroneously accorded the status of “constitutional right” in Roe. Unfortunately, it seems perhaps likely, based on rapidly accumulating data points, that pro-lifers’ patience could be similarly tested as we push onward toward the only logical endpoint in this defining struggle for substantive justice and human dignity: abortion abolition in America.

This week’s resounding defeat of Issue 1 in increasingly bright-red Ohio is another tough pill to swallow for pro-lifers, who have now endured a number of painful ballot box defeats in the year-plus since Dobbs. True, that ballot measure, which would have (soundly) raised the threshold for amending the Ohio state constitution to 60% of voters from the bare-majority status quo, said nothing explicitly about abortion. But in advance of this November’s separate ballot box referendum on codifying an abortion “right” in Ohio’s state constitution, Issue 1 was treated as an abortion proxy by Buckeye State activists on both sides – not to mention those across the country who flooded the state with money to help mobilize voters on both sides. Issue 1 was rejected 57%-43%.

If that were the end of the story, it wouldn’t be all that terrible. But the defeat of Issue 1 must be interpreted in a broader context. Since Dobbs, the following has all transpired: Michigan’s abortion “right” constitutional amendment passed 57%-43%; Kansans retained an abortion “right” in their state constitution – via an unusually poorly worded referendum, albeit – by a 59%-41% margin; Kentuckians voted to reject a declaration that their state constitution not be construed to contain an abortion “right,” by a 52%-48% margin; and a crucial state supreme court election in Wisconsin was decidedly won by a pro-abortion jurist, flipping that court from a conservative to a progressive majority in what has become one of the nation’s closest swing states.

It is certainly true that numerous pro-life governors won handily in last November’s midterm elections despite having passed pro-life legislation: Ron DeSantis and Kim Reynolds demolished their opponents in Florida and Iowa, respectively, and Texas’ Greg Abbott and Georgia’s Brian Kemp also secured their own reelections by very comfortable margins. At the same time, available exit polling from last November tended to show that most single-issue abortion voters – those whose votes were mostly animated by, or even cast exclusively due to, their stances on abortion – pulled the lever for Democrats, not Republicans. That is a stark reversal from the pre-Dobbs era, when most single-issue voters on this issue were animated by their pro-life convictions and determination to see Roe discarded into the dustbin of history.

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Source:  https://amgreatness.com/2023/08/11/the-pro-life-dilemma-and-the-politics-of-prudence/

[Fishrrman]

The right would have done better by leaving Roe v Wade intact.

And then, pressing (through the courts and legislation) to compel states to honor the actual provisions of RvW as outlined by Harry Blackmun in his opinion:
That over the course of a pregnancy, there were competing interests between the woman, the state, and the fetus, to wit:
- 1st trimester, state had no right to intevene
- 2nd trimester, the increasing interest of the fetus must be considered
- 3rd trimester, the state had the right to ban abortion to protect the fetus.

Thus, late-term abortions could be outlawed (right and properly).

The main "issue of contention" between one state and the next would be at what point in the 2nd trimester the state's right to intervene became strong enough vis-a-vis the woman's desire to terminate the pregnancy.

Perhaps John Roberts was right when he tried to sway his colleagues not to abort Roe.

Dobbs stands as the textbook example of "a Pyrrhic Victory".

And it has engendered a remarkable "reversal of fortune" for the DCommunists.

[Maj. Bill Martin]

I'd be hesitant  about drawing that kind of conclusion based on what happened to Issue 1 in Ohio.

The pro-Issue 1 campaign was just terrible, and didn't get the message out at all.  Lots of people truly didn't even know what it did.

In contrast, I couldn't drive a block without seeing a "No on 1" sign.  Even had a canvasser come to my house.   The Ohio GOP figured nobody would come to the polls if it was the only thing on the ballot, counted on very low turnout, and spent very little money.  The Dems mobilized and turned out.

I wouldn't conclude from that result that abortion is going to be the determinative issue in the next general election.  Hell, JD Vance just won his Senate seat over a very pro-Roe Dem last year.