Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
There are two uncompromising sides in the abortion debate — and then there's the middle, which is where most Americans are.
It's also where Donald Trump is: He's best described as a pro-life moderate.
Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, on the other hand, are neither pro-life nor moderate.
The Democratic ticket wants to impose one policy on the whole country, a policy to allow abortion up to the point of birth — or even beyond.
Common sense tells ordinary Americans that when they see a pregnant woman, there's a baby inside her.
Ultrasound imaging makes clear just what the baby inside looks like, including in early months when it's not outwardly obvious a woman's pregnant.
Late-term abortions, when it's easy to understand a baby's life is being taken, deeply trouble voters.
They're willing to make exceptions if the mother's life is in danger or the baby's unable to live outside the womb, but otherwise, they think these procedures should be restricted.
For lawmakers and the public, the hard question is just how late is "late term"? How far along does a pregnancy have to be before the law recognizes and protects a child?
For Harris, that's an easy question because she hardly thinks there should be any limits on abortion, no matter how late.
Pro-life activists upset at Trump because he says a ban on abortion after six weeks, as in Florida, is too early — though he opposes a state constitutional amendment that would raise the limit to around six months — should worry more about where Harris stands on abortion even later than that.
Democrats like Harris often say they want to go back to the way things were under Roe v. Wade, which, along with subsequent Supreme Court decisions, theoretically permitted different restrictions on abortion during different trimesters.
In practice, the Roe regime interpreted "health" of the mother so broadly that it didn't just allow late-term abortions to save her life but for any number of reasons — or none at all.
Under Roe, some Democrats even defended what opponents labeled "partial-birth abortion," where the abortion's performed as the baby's being delivered.
Harris wants abortion to be available at any time, anywhere from coast to coast, without regard for the distinctions voters try to make from state to state as they ask when a baby becomes a baby.
Roe never solved America's abortion dilemma but only intensified it, taking the last word on the issue out of state politics and making it a source of national division.
The federalist approach Trump favors brings decision-making back to voters' own communities, where they can reason through their differences as neighbors, building whatever agreement is possible on the small scale.
But that middle way is as unsatisfactory to the firmest pro-lifers as it is to abortion-everywhere extremists like Harris.
The most consistent abortion opponents believe personhood begins at conception — yet they have a hard time convincing other Americans of this.
Their own slogans sometimes undercut the argument.
"It's a baby, not a clump of cells," goes one saying — but when most voters think about a fertilized egg cell or embryo in earliest development, they don't see a baby.
Adding to the difficulty is that the unstinting position rules out in-vitro fertilization since that reproductive assistance creates more embryos than can be implanted and born.
Democrats delight in turning the pro-life argument inside out: Can it really be pro-family to prevent children from being conceived and born?
No IVF means fewer babies — most Americans don't think that's a good thing.
Neither does Trump, which is why he risked the wrath of abortion opponents by telling NBC News, "Under the Trump administration, we are going to be paying for that treatment," elaborating, "We're going to be mandating that the insurance company pay."
He risks provoking small-government and localist conservatives, too, but that's a risk he takes knowing IVF enjoys overwhelming support, including among Republicans.
Democrats know this, too, which is why they lie about what Trump and his party believe.
Walz went as far as to lie about his own wife's fertility treatments, pretending she received IVF so he could falsely claim about Trump's running mate, JD Vance, that "If it was up to him, I wouldn't have a family because of IVF."
The truth is Vance supports IVF — and Walz's wife never had it.
A sure sign Trump and Vance occupy the middle ground is that they're being criticized by the right as well as the left, while no abortion supporter, however radical, feels a need to criticize Harris and Walz.
The staunchest pro-lifers don't want to settle for Trump's compromise, but the alternative on the ballot in November isn't an absolute anti-abortion position. It's the absolute abortion-supporting position of Harris and Walz.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 08/27/24: Donald Trump Is Reagan's Heir
• 08/20/24: Will Voters Settle for Joe Biden's Wing(wo)man?
• 08/13/24: Trump Has to Run Like It's 2016 Again
• 08/07/24: Is Trump Running Against Harris -- or Donald Trump?
• 07/30/24: Kamala Harris' 'Mean Girls' Election
• 07/23/24: Kamala Harris Is the Opponent Donald Trump Wants
• 07/16/24: Ready for Biden's Counterattack?
• 07/09/24: Biden Faces Richard Nixon's Choice
• 07/02/24: Should Biden Drop Out -- or Resign?
• 06/18/24: Separate Sexual Identity and State
• 06/18/24: Nigel Farage Makes the Trump Moment Permanent
• 06/04/24: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print