Amidst the outrage over the Supreme Court’s overturning Roe v Wade last week, one might think that the American political system was collapsing in on itself like a dying star.
A “divided nation pushed to the breaking point,” says CNN. Mass protests. Trigger laws. Funds to bus women to blue sanctuaries for emergency abortions. At least one attempted assassination of a conservative justice. Criticism from the president of France, even though France has stricter abortion laws than the US. The abortion endorsement of the literal church of Satan.
With all this, one wonders why Democrats don’t take the obvious step they could to re-legalize abortion:
Just introduce a bill.
See, many people – even some ardent pro-abortioners – have admitted for decades that Roe v Wade was on shaky Constitutional grounds, even Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Because of course when the issue is about making laws, the people who should do that are lawmakers.
Something which – amidst the cries for street-level political violence – one would think the Democrats consider themselves incapable of even when they control the House of Representatives, Senate, and White House. In the current political climate, passing a National Abortion Legalization Act would be simplicity itself: it would race through the House, stall in the Senate, get passed thanks to Susan Collins and Mitt Romney, then go to the White House where Joe Biden’s aides would help him write an X on the bill to make it law.
But rather than take this obvious “I’m just a bill” approach, abortion advocates seem hellbent on doing anything but that. And that’s where things get complicated.
See, Democrats have relied heavily on the notion of shifting ethnic demographics in the United States to pave their way to ultimate, everlasting power. Their game of 52 Race Card Pick-up has worked very well for them for a long time, the problem is when actual elected officials have to start playing the abortion game, they won’t be able to keep bluffing their way into office.
Minority groups tend to be more socially conservative than their voting patterns indicate. A majority of Hispanics (52 percent) believe abortion should be illegal in most or all instances, according to a study by the Public Religion Research Institute, which also found that nonwhite Catholics support abortion's legality by a 55 percent to 37 percent margin. Furthermore, Gallup found that just 32 percent of African Americans believe abortion should be legal in all circumstances, while Margaret Singer’s deeply racist motivations for founding Planned Parenthood probably won’t go over well the more African Americans learn about them. And all these Muslims who vote Democrat? What’s their opinion on abortion?
These trends could be why Millennials and Gen Zers want limits on abortion that Gen X didn’t.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi could introduce a bill today and call for a floor vote tomorrow – but she’ll never do that. Democrats don’t want candidates to answer questions about abortion-on-demand to their church (or mosque) going voter base. They know it’s safer for them to let unaccountable judges carry their water.
Virtually no one who votes Republican is going to flip to Democrat over abortion, but the reverse is probably not the same. Given the recent victory by Republican Mayra Flores in a district that’s 84 percent Hispanic, DC Democrats who push abortion will push even more socially conservative minorities into voting Republican this year.
And the more scrutiny the issue receives, like that Europe has stricter abortion laws than America and that women tend to be pro-life more than women, as Bill Maher learned recently, the worse the debate will go for the abortion industrial complex.
Given the Biden Administration’s disastrous foreign policy and the impending global recession, Democrats want to distract votes with anything. There is the hope that something as hot-button as abortion could provide that, but this will probably backfire.
So instead, we’re left with (another) summer of protests – but most people who do that aren’t having any babies, so one imagines this violent opposition will eventually die out.
Jared Whitley is a longtime DC and Utah politico, having worked in the US Senate, White House, and defense industry. He is principal of Whitley Political Media, LLC.
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