Look, you’re not going to find anybody more against killing babies than me, but I don’t have a problem with what Donald Trump said the other day about abortion. I didn’t have a problem with it for the last 50 years either when that was generally the position of the Republican Party. We got rid of Roe v. Wade, a constitutional and moral atrocity, by observing that the Constitution does not say anything about abortion, that the issue should be left to the states, and that each state must decide. Well, that’s what happened. We got what we wanted. And that’s what some members of our party are mad about. They want a federal law controlling abortion. Except that’s not what we promised.
It’s hard to understand how one justifies dishonesty as a political strategy. That’s what this is. They are asking that we conduct a bait and switch. We promised that every state would decide for itself, and now it’s, “No, now we’re going to decide for you.” How do you expect people to react to that? We overturned Roe with the understanding that some states would be awesome and largely ban the barbarian practice and that other states, like my own California, would declare open season on fetuses. And that’s what has happened. But you know what? Thousands and thousands of lives have been saved. In the butchery states? No, abortion continues there. But we’ve made progress. We’ve saved lives.
We have to stop making the good the enemy of the perfect and start understanding that progress is made incrementally. The left imposed Roe v. Wade, which made a huge, horrifying leap in one fell swoop. And look what happened. It got overturned in one fell swoop.
The battle against abortion is not going to end by passing a law at the federal level. It just isn’t. First of all, it’s not clear Congress even could enact one. You know, we just threw out a ruling that said the federal government could make abortion laws. It’s unclear why anyone would think that the specific abortion laws that the Supreme Court imposed would be somehow different from the specific abortion laws that Congress would impose in terms of constitutional validity. And I’ve got to ask, where in the Constitution is the enumerated power allowing the federal government to make abortion laws? I don’t see it. I guess you could say “Commerce Clause” because the Commerce Clause has been twisted and stretched to cover pretty much everything, but now we’re doing exactly what we oppose. I guess you could make a twisted 14th Amendment argument, but that’s what Roe did, too. This isn’t just a technicality. The federal government’s powers are limited to what we’ve granted it in the Constitution, and as much as I despise abortion – and I don’t think you understand the full depth of my horror at the practice – I don’t see abortion laws in the Constitution.
Then, let’s get to the practical matters. Could we pass a law effectively banning or seriously limiting abortion? Of course, we couldn’t. Who are the 60 senators who are going to vote for that? What are their names? I know we had stupid Lindsay Graham decide to screw up the 2022 cycle by giving the Democrats the abortion issue in demanding a federal law on it. Who are the other guys who will join in? More specifically, what are the names of the 10 Democrats willing to sign on? Let me save you time. There aren’t any. It is never going to happen. So stop wasting your time fantasizing about it.
And then there’s the fact that we don’t even agree on ourselves. Even on the pro-life side, people have different views. Some approve of the common life of the mother, rape, and incest exceptions. Others don’t. And some pro-life people are willing to allow it to six or maybe a few more weeks. And yes, I understand that some pro-life people demand zero abortions ever. But that’s just not where the vast majority of Americans are. We are not going to be able to dictate to the rest of America.
If we even make a serious effort to do this, the rest of America will resent us for it, and when I say resent us for it, I mean vote against us in November. We’ve seen abortion referendum after abortion referendum since Dobbs, and they all seem to pass. The Democrats have been beating us around the head with abortion. What they’ll do is call us liars if we try and pass an abortion law, and they have the advantage of truth because we didn’t promise this. We promised the opposite. It’s electoral poison, and there’s a lot more at stake than abortion – free speech, economic prosperity, and peace, to name just a few. But as for abortion itself, if the Democrats get the power, they’ll legalize it up to the moment that a kid gets his driver’s license. If you want to kill more kids, push for a federal abortion ban because that is a certain way of killing more kids.
The way to change abortion is to change hearts and minds one state at a time. I wish we could wave a magic wand and make this barbaric practice disappear. But I’m not a child. I understand that even things I believe in deeply are not going to just happen through the sheer power of rightness. We’ve got a lot of work to do. We can’t just wish the practice away because we accurately assess it as horribly wrong.
Is Donald Trump immoral for feeling the way he does about abortion? There are lots of pro-life people who are ticked off at him, but these people need to understand that Donald Trump, first of all, represents most Americans’ position and, second, that he was the most successful pro-life president in American history. This man has saved thousands upon thousands of lives through his judicial appointments who tossed out Roe. Trump hasn’t betrayed anybody. He just disagrees at the margins.
Trump is looking at things realistically and, yes, politically. And he damn well better look at things politically because there’s a lot more at stake here than abortion in 2024. A lot more. We need to look at the big picture. We need to say “Yes” to our successes. And we need to do the hard work necessary to win in the future. We are not going to win by pouting or whining that we haven’t been able to skip through the constitutional processes to get what we want. Instant victory is not going to happen. And frankly, it shouldn’t happen. We should win this the right way – by changing hearts and minds because if we try any other strategy, we’re going to end up establishing a federal right to control abortion, and then the Democrats are going to have their say, and a lot more babies are going to die when there are no restrictions on abortion at all.
Be real, be smart, because the alternative is total failure.
Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Get the eighth volume in the Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels set in America after a notional national divorce, the bestselling Amazon #1 Military Thriller, Overlord! And get his new novel of terrorism in America, The Attack!
Look, you need to keep up the fight by joining Townhall VIP right now. You get access to a bunch of great stuff, not the least of which is my extra Wednesday Column, my weekly Stream of Kurtiousness videos every Friday, and the Unredacted podcast every Monday! Plus, some stuff from Larry O’Connor – and a bunch of other stuff.
My super-secret email address is Kurt.Schlichter@townhall.com