In the aftermath of the draft Dobbs v Jackson case that ends Roe v Wade, Democrats have aggressively seized on the abortion issue, hoping for change in fortunes for their dispirited supporters. Conventional wisdom suggests that the ending of Roe v Wade will help Democrats, as polls have long shown that a complete repeal of Roe v Wade does not have majority support. There is little doubt that this issue, as it stands, helps the Democrats slightly (but only at the margins) simply because when we’re talking about abortion, we’re not talking about the disastrous policies of the Biden administration. So of course Senator Schumer is only too happy to change the conversation. The Republicans are wise not to say too much, as it only plays into the Democrats hands by taking them off very thin ice and putting them on relatively more solid ice. But as usual, you can count on the moderates in the Democratic Party to go extreme, and they’re doing it in Mr. Schumer’s bill.

Now the extreme positions of both the left and right are the only two intellectual reasonable positions–either abortion for any and all reasons, or no abortion except to save the life of the mother. The rationale for this is clear. If the unborn child is just a clump of fetal cells, with no inherent dignity, and is just a non-essential product of the mother’s body that effectively is her property, then yes, My Body, My Choice. Who are we to say otherwise, if there is no inherent dignity and value from what resides within her womb? But if the life within her, that is uniquely determined at the point of conception, has inherent dignity and personhood based on being created in the image of God, then brutally killing this most vulnerable person is the most heinous of sins. It is an evil that the Avenger of Evil must stop. Yet most people are not willing to take the logic of these positions to the extremes, and there is substantial support and nuance within the categories of possible exceptions. Should we have exceptions for rape and incest? Should we allow late term abortions, or abortions for the purpose of sex selection? Ought we abort a child that has Down’s Syndrome? These are all tougher aspects of the issue that most American’s have nuance on, despite my strong preference and belief that all abortion except to save the life of the mother is evil.

The current application of Roe v Wade effectively has our policy position at the extreme left, and does not have the nuance that most Americans would support. You can have sex selection abortions in the U.S. today. You can abort late term. You can effectively abort for any and all reasons, if perhaps not in all parts of the country (for various reasons). Supposedly progressive Europe is much more restrictive than we are on abortion, among other things that liberal Bill Mahar is finding out:

So why do I think the Republicans have the better cards? Because their progressive left is going to ask them to walk the plank to be on the record to vote for abortion for any reason at any time. That’s the bill that Senator Schumer is pushing now, denying a more limited pro-choice alternative that could actually pass with the support of Senators Murkowski and Collins. The Republican position is more simple, as these possible talking points suggest:

With the end of Roe v Wade, we are sending the issue back to the people, not unelected, unaccountable judges. You will have the power through the political process of representative democracy to end the monstrosity of partial birth abortion. You can end the abortion industry’s targeting of African-Americans.* You can end the abortion industry’s targeting of primarily females for the purpose of sex selection. You will be able to celebrate life. We in the Republican Party will never give up on fighting for the dignity of every person, born and unborn.

And since the entire media complex is going ask Republicans about all the tough cases (rape, incest), they need to be ready to say yes, those are tough cases, and that’s why we think the people ought to have a voice in those cases, not unelected judges. Unlike the Democratic Party, we trust the American people to do the right thing in the end. But the real question you should be asking is: is there any sort of abortion that the Democratic Party can say no to? You should be asking them at what point does an unborn child deserve protection? And you should ask them why at that point, and not earlier?

I’d rather play the Republican’s hand than the Democrats. At the least I would certainly sleep better at night.

* Since this is gated (WSJ Op-Ed by Jason Riley), I’ll copy a small portion here for your consideration. Please read the whole thing if you have access.

When it comes to abortion, however, left-wing concern seems to stop at making the procedure safe and legal, even while black-white disparities have not only persisted but widened. A 2020 paper by public-health scholar James Studnicki and two co-authors cites data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to note that the black abortion rate is nearly four times higher than the white rate: “Between 2007-2016, the Black rate declined 29% and the White rate declined 33%—meaning that the racial disparity actually increased rather than decreased.” Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurrence in a 2019 abortion case observed that “there are areas of New York City in which black children are more likely to be aborted than they are to be born alive—and are up to eight times more likely to be aborted than white children in the same area.

EDIT: Great article on point now at National Review; check it out.