The Man Most Responsible for Ending Roe Worries That It Could Hurt His Party

The end of the landmark Roe v. Wade ruling was the culmination of decades of work by Republicans and social conservatives — one that came to pass only after a former Democrat from New York who had once supported abortion rights helped muscle through three Supreme Court justices.

Publicly, former President Donald J. Trump heralded the Supreme Court’s ruling on Friday ending federal abortion protections as a victory. Yet, as he faces possible prosecution over his efforts to subvert the 2020 election and prepares for a likely 2024 presidential campaign, Mr. Trump has privately told friends and advisers the ruling will be “bad for Republicans.”

When a draft copy of the decision leaked in May, Mr. Trump began telling friends and advisers that it would anger suburban women, a group who helped tilt the 2020 race to President Biden, and would lead to a backlash against Republicans in the November midterm elections.

In other conversations, Mr. Trump has told people that measures like the Texas state law banning most abortions after six weeks and allowing citizens to file lawsuits against people who enable abortions are “so stupid,” according to a person with direct knowledge of the discussions. The Supreme Court let the measure stand in December 2021.

For the first hours after the decision was made public on Friday, Mr. Trump was muted in response, a striking contrast to the conservatives who worked in his administration, including former Vice President Mike Pence. Mr. Pence issued a statement saying, “Life won,” as he called for abortion opponents to keep fighting “in every state in the land.”

Carl Sagan wrote "The Demon Haunted World" before he died. In it he talked about what your comments address - that society was becoming 'all or none' in its approaches to issues, with no compromise or willingness to examine and discuss.

He actually addressed abortion, and said on one extreme you have those who think that contraception, or the morning after pill are equivalent to any later time of abortion. On the other extreme you have those for whom partial birth abortion is just fine, and for whom all abortions are OK.

I agree with your general sentiments, but right and wrong also exist. Not all people believe that there are absolutes in anything. I personally believe there are some absolutes. That said, sometimes you have to retreat, give up territory, and regroup. It depends on what is at stake.

Sagan may have been a liberal (I don't know one way or the other), but he definitely made some good points. This is from this book:

“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what's true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness. The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

Not a total ban. Something a majority of voters can live with.

The irony is a 15 week ban is in line with many of the "enlightened" European countries that the left idolizes.

A 15 week ban was also at the heart of the Dobbs case. Mississippi enacted a perfectly reasonable 15 week ban but the pro-abortion left, who want abortions to be available anywhere, anytime, and for any reason were angry and took the law to court.

And now Roe V. Wade is history.

We didn't do this. They brought this upon themselves.

It may always be like that. We just go through cycles. Look at the American Civil War. Or the Spanish Civil War.

Sometimes it's all about timing and the issues emerge and there you go. Fireworks.

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