If Lincoln was going to be elected in 1860, he wasn’t going to succeed calling for the abolition of slavery. Trump has decided that pushing federal abortion elimination is a losing proposition in 2024. Like it or not, Trump is right about the politics of the issue. A majority opposes ending abortion. He’s right to assert that the U.S. Supreme Court striking down Roe v. Wade and returning abortion to the states is where this historic issue needs to be. But let’s stress, for the time being.
Abortion is modern America’s slavery issue. Slavery wasn’t settled at ballot boxes. The Compromise of 1850 was an attempted congressional fix that inflamed tensions. Lincoln opposed slavery’s extension, but acknowledged slavery as constitutionally protected. The slave states were to be left alone. Despite Lincoln’s efforts to calm southern fears, his politics failed. The slavery question was resolved by war — a war the South instigated. It took three-quarters of a century — and four years of blood and treasure — to destroy that awful institution.
This isn’t to suggest that abortion is destined to be settled by war. It’s to suggest that, finally, the American house will not be divided against itself indefinitely, not over a question as seminal as what constitutes human life. The day will come for a national solution. That day isn’t now.
As in past presidential elections, divisions over abortion aren’t dominating voters’ minds. Abortion will only move front and center if Democrats are handed a gift. Trump isn’t about to do that. He’s right to focus on issues that voters identify as pressing.
Reviewing polling, we find Democrats are in a world of hurt. Every major issue is cutting against Biden. Uppermost on voters’ minds, the economy, the border, and crime. Working-class and middle-class voters are struggling monthly to pay bills. Moreover, voters don’t want Biden and his team of neocons and nincompoops scheming and blundering us into war somewhere.
Social Security and Medicare are no longer convenient bloody flags to wave. Trump long preempted that with his support for both programs. Abortion is the Democrats’ wedge issue today. Seniors have been replaced by suburban and single women. Democrats hope that hammering away at abortion will keep those key cohorts from straying to Trump or Bobby Kennedy, Jr. It’s important to underscore that Kennedy will play a critical, if not decisive, role in determining the presidential race.
Kennedy is a “pro-choice” Catholic like Biden. Trump’s aim is to give pro-abortion Democrats and independents who don’t like Biden — but won’t vote for him — every chance to back Kennedy. Had Trump declared for a national end to abortion, he’d have risked driving pro-abortion voters to the incumbent president.
Let’s not kid ourselves. Yes, the issues environment favors Trump. Early polling shows Trump maintaining consistent, albeit, narrow, leads over Biden. Yet, in all likelihood, the presidential contest is headed for another photo finish. Talk of blue Michigan and Minnesota being in play this autumn is premature. Upsets are certainly possible with Kennedy in the mix. But the Biden-Trump-Kennedy match may boil down to as few as five swing states. So, there’s little room for error.
On the life issue, who’s the alternative to electing Trump? Writing in someone as a protest vote doesn’t count. Major pro-life organizations are uncomfortable with Trump’s position, but are backing him, nonetheless. As Ralph Reed’s Faith and Freedom Coalition declared:
“Donald Trump was the most pro-life president in American history, and we are grateful for all he did as president to advance a culture of life. He kept his promise to appoint the conservative federal judges, which gave us the opportunity after a half-century of struggle to protect the unborn,” the organization said in a statement. [snip]
The consequence is that Biden’s handlers and congressional Democrats will be more emboldened to push for abortions without restrictions. That includes gruesome late-term abortion.
What could Trump do as president about abortion? He could repeal Biden’s expansive executive order reacting to SCOTUS overturning Roe v. Wade. He could seek to limit federal funding. He could work to repeal the draconian FACE Act, which is being used to convict and send peaceful pro-life protesters to federal prison for up to ten and a half years plus fines up to $260,000.
Abortion, like slavery, is a transcendent moral issue. Were Lincoln with us today, he’d surely affirm that both sides cannot be right about abortion. One or the other must prevail. A patchwork quilt of states — some permitting abortion, some limiting it, and others prohibiting it — will not hold indefinitely. A baby in the womb is or isn’t a person. There’s no middle ground. How would Lincoln stand on the moral question of life? It isn’t hard to draw a line from his opposition to slavery to abortion today.
It’s the politics surrounding abortion that are complicated.
Lincoln was a shrewd, practical politician. He was also a man who abhorred slavery, but he wasn’t an abolitionist. He opposed slavery’s expansion. Maintaining the Union was critical to Lincoln. He believed if the institution was confined to the southern states, it would eventually wither away. Southerners made war because they rejected Lincoln’s stance.
Returning abortion to the states will prove only a waystation in the ongoing struggle over what constitutes human life. As contentious as abortion has been since SCOTUS’ 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, the Court overturning Roe v. Wade has only created fresh tensions and fissures. Though the battle has shifted to the states, neither side of the abortion question will ultimately be satisfied with a “states’ rights” solution. Neither side of the slavery question was.
A gestating baby is a human being, with full rights accorded. That’s primal to the debate. Abortion advocates can’t hope to resolve abortion socially and politically in their favor unless they can persuade tens of millions of Americans that terminating a pregnancy isn’t killing a human being. Basic science — and advancing science — weigh against them.
In any event, currently, the majority’s disposition favors abortion to some extent. Given the politics generated, Trump is playing the smartest hand possible. Another four years of Biden’s figurehead presidency — or Kamala Harris’ presidency — would be filled with bolder assaults on life. Bolder, crueler, and more militant, knowing the radicalism of a newer generation of progressives and abortion promoters. A Trump presidency would be a bulwark against intensified assaults.
It might satisfy some if Trump seized the pro-life standard and rushed headlong at a fusillade of bullets fired at him this election season. Trump could be like John Brown. Odes could be written. But Trump isn’t John Brown — nor should he be. He’s a tough businessman and politician. Trump means to win this autumn — not at any cost, but to borrow from Ronald Reagan, he isn’t going to wrap himself in the flag and jump off a cliff.
The hard reality is that abortion isn’t going to be settled any time soon. In the interim, the aim is to reduce abortions, thereby saving as many lives as possible. While abortion limits can be achieved through state and federal actions, even greater efforts need to be made to change hearts and minds. Ending abortion requires convincing more women that the babies they’re carrying — or may one day carry — are human beings, intimately related to them, not to be discarded, but loved and cared for. That’s not Donald Trump’s job. That’s ours.
J. Robert Smith can be found at Gab, @JRobertSmith. He blogs occasionally at Flyover. He’s returned to X. His handle there is @JRobertSmith1.