The Politics of Abortion Again

Tony Flood writes and wants my response:

What if we gain the presidency and lose our soul?

I believe the conceptus (a fortiori, the embryo, the fetus) is an immature, but complete, human being with all the rights accruing thereto, including the right not to be wantonly destroyed. Most of the electorate, however, disagrees and will not extend protection to a human fetus younger than 15 weeks, or so Trump calculates. If Republicans insist on such protection, as I interpret his calculus, the majority will electorally complete America's descent into a one-party tyranny. In the American gulag we will reflect on the price of principle. Trump will not (because he cannot) provide the analytical rigor we need now to weigh life against liberty.

Our topic is not the morality of abortion, but the politics thereof. Tony and I agree that abortion is a grave moral evil, from conception on.  (For arguments, see my Abortion category.) But as Tony rightly points out, most of the electorate disagrees.  As for Trump's calculation, I will assume that it is correct.  And I suspect that Trump is right that if Republicans say the kind of stupid things that Mike Pence said in the first debate, the chances of a Republican return to the White House will be appreciably lessened.

I will now reproduce portions of something I wrote earlier which Tony may not have read.

The overturning of Roe v. Wade returned the abortion question to the states. That means that each state is now empowered to enact its own laws regulating abortion. Some states will permit abortion up to the moment of birth. Others will not. Different states, different laws.

What then are we to make of Mike Pence and Senator Tim Scott and their  call for a Federal law that bans abortion (apart from the usual exceptions) during the last 15 weeks of pregnancy? 

Am I missing something? [. . .] It strikes me as obvious that if the abortion issue is for the states to decide, then there cannot be any federal abortion laws. 

Nikki Haley and Pence danced around this issue but their heated tango  was irrelevant blather. [. . .]

The precise question is: How is a federal abortion restriction consistent with the states' right to decide the abortion laws? [. . .]

The answer to the precise question is that a federal restriction is not consistent with states' rights. It is unconstitutional.

This is not a very satisfying answer given that abortion is a moral abomination. (See my Abortion category for arguments.) But arguments, no matter how good, cut no ice in the teeth of our concupiscence. This is explained in my Substack article, Abortion and the Wages of Concupiscence Unrestrained.

Now Tony, you must respond directly to what I said above, in particular, to the third paragraph. Am I right or am I wrong? If you think I am wrong, explain why.

I now add a couple of further points that I consider very important.

1) Politics is a practical game. It is not about perfect versus imperfect. It is (almost) always about better or worse. If you sit on the sidelines waiting for the perfect candidate, you are a fool.  Trump is flawed, but he is far better than Biden or anyone else the Dems are likely to replace him with. So if Trump gets the nod, the conservative must vote for Trump; if De Santis, then De Santis. 

2) Abortion is just one issue of several. Here are some issues that are equally if not more important. Crime.  No doubt, unborn lives matter.  But then so do born lives.  A little old lady should be able to walk down the street to buy groceries without fear of being beaten to death with a tire iron. Democrat policies have led to an unprecedented upsurge in unspeakably vicious forms of violence against persons and property. National sovereignty. The Biden administration is guilty of utter dereliction of duty in intentionally allowing the invasion of the country by drug cartels, human traffickers, terrorists, people bearing sub-tropical diseases, etc.  Financial collapse.  Assaults on constitutionally-guaranteed liberties. I could go on. 

My suggestion is that presidential candidates should shut up about abortion. There is nothing that they can do about it at the the federal level. This issue has been returned to the states.  

Tony asked: "What if we gain the presidency and lose our soul?" 

My answer is that if we don't gain the presidency then we lose everything including our soul. Think about it. If the Left wins, then they will pack the Supreme Court and reinstate Roe v. Wade.

And Tony, haven't we already lost our collective soul? You admit that the majority of the electorate has no moral objection to abortion on demand at any stage of fetal development.  A soul that has already been lost cannot be lost a second time.

Where am I going wrong?

Comments

[Joe Odegaard]

If you will read the history of the American Civil War, you will see that Lincoln, the moderate on slavery, finally accomplished what the hard-liner anti-slavery types could never have accomplished. I suspect something similar is happening here.

And the right-to-life ladies need to be diligent in speaking to their leftist sisters, because women won't listen to men on this topic. That is why Pence should shut up.

[Anthony G Flood]

You don't go wrong at all, Bill. Constitutionally, there are no grounds for federal abortion laws.

You've spelled out the dilemma I fear we face, which I expressed perhaps too gingerly. In doing so, I may have given the inaccurate impression that I need to be reminded that politics is the nonutopian art of the possible.

I remember Murray Rothbard's guffaw when in 1992 I asked him how he, an anarcho-capitalist, could back Pat Buchanan who supported tariffs (as does Trump). "Tony [I paraphrase], a few tariffs is a small price to pay to dislodge the Bushies!" When Pat dropped out he backed Perot for a while, whose 19% spoiler vote gave us the Clintons. Should Murray have backed Bush after all?

There's no avoiding the weighing of probabilities. Unlike tariffs, unborn life is inviolable, but that doesn't make the need to calculate go away. It only makes it harder.

Yes, too many Americans have lost their soul, and so collectively "we" have lost "our" soul to the degree that "we" insist on term(ination) limits. And if we go with 15 weeks, or six, we'll pay a price in ways we cannot foresee.

Even a Trump victory in 2024 will only bring us to a new phase of the civil war that's slowly but surely going from cold to hot. The other side is not going to say, "Yup, you beat us fair and square!" (What might happen were a Texas National Guardsman to shoot a DHS razor-wire cutter?)

For all the practical reasons you listed, I infinitely prefer Trump to any of his rivals. His victory——rather, the victory of the people who will elect him, one hopes in a landslide——will put our side in the driver's seat for a spell. If it's a seat in the political equivalent of an Abrams tank, we may get something done. And then I can go back to arguing for anarcho-capitalism in peace (:^D).

Tony

[BV]

Tony,

Did you see the first pres. debate? If yes, I will ask you a question about Pence's 'contribution.'

[Leo Wong]

https://leowong.micro.blog/2023/09/26/the-court-returns.html