Why I think Democrats should compromise on Roe v. Wade

February 27, 2017

1. It’s about $400 round trip to fly from O’Hare to SFO, and California won’t have waiting periods for abortion any time soon. That’s a longer than average distance to a coastal state that will provide abortion-on-demand. This, while not a trivial expense, is something that the vast majority of American women can recover from. Seriously, get over it. Let the red states ban abortions. We won’t go back to coathangers, we’ll go back to flying places where it’s legal, as one of Jane Roe’s lawyers did during the infamous case. Between Mexico, Canada, Cuba (which is opening up and would love our money) and both coasts, we’re good, seriously.
2. Roe v. Wade is, in fact, an absurd decision, and there’s a reason that the Court has been walking away from it ever since. Search your Constitution, liberals, you know this to be true.
3. Trump would not have become President if Hillary had been willing to compromise and the base had been willing to accept this.
4. There are other issues that are more important. Around three quarters of a million abortions happened last year, which means we’re looking at something that affects .25% of the population annually. Compare the effort we spend on this to how much it would take to, say, ensure that every woman had access to the moderate sum I mentioned in case of an emergency.
5. “ Several years ago, at Family Research Councils Values Voter Summit, Southern Baptist leader Richard Land said he’d vote for a Jewish pro-life politician who promised to raise his taxes before he’d vote in a Christian pro-choice candidate who promised to cut them.” Joe Carter, web editor of First Things. Seriously, we’d get votes.So many votes. And who are we going to lose, exactly? Say we still believe in being pro-choice, we’re just acknowledging that Roe v. Wade was a bad decision on the grounds of state’s rights (which it is, BTW).
6. Are you at all worried that a competent Republican party might be able to steal Black voters by being, well, religious and not Republicans? This would help.
7. It might, just maybe, help depoliticize SCOTUS. This is more of a “this country would benefit” than a party goal, really, but you got into this to help people, right?

1. As many have pointed out, for a significant number of people, $400 is a significant barrier. So, even apart from the money, is a trip to California.

2. I don’t fully agree with the argument in RvW, but nor is it “absurd.” “Search your constitution” - which I take to mean, “if a right or protection isn’t explicitly and specifically mentioned in the Constitution, then it does not exist” - is a radical approach to law that would overturn not only Roe but many other decisions.

3. This seems unlikely to be true.
3a) Trump voters wouldn’t find Clinton credible if she suddenly went against her lifelong pro-choice advocacy, and so wouldn’t trust what she said. This is exactly what happened to her on free trade - she reversed herself, but no Trump voters bought it.
3b) Most voters did not decide their vote based on the abortion issue.
3c) The voters who did decide to vote based soley on abortion, would be unlikely to vote for Clinton based just on this, since by voting for Trump they get more than this.

4. Measuring how much abortion matters in persons per year, when the effects of childbirth last a lifetime, is not justifiable. As of 2008, which is the most recent data available, 1 in 3 U.S. women*** have an abortion at some time in their life. The number may have changed since 2008 (there should be updated numbers sometime this year), but even if it’s now 1 in 4, that’s an enormous number of Americans.
*** Normally I try to use sex-neutral language to discussion abortion rights. However, the study covers “U.S. women,” and I didn’t want to change that language and give an inaccurate impression of what the study examined.

5. This is basically a repetition of your point 3, so the same response applies. And there is no reason to assume that the anecdotal examples given here are representative.
And of course Democrats would lose some votes if (for example) Clinton had promised to appoint a Supreme Court justice who would vote to overturn Roe. Those voters wouldn’t have gone to Trump - but a lot of voters on the edge between Clinton and Jill Stein would have gone to Stein (hoping to teach the Democratic party that they can’t neglect and ignore their pro-choice base). Just as importantly, we’d lose activists and volunteer enthusiasm, which has real effects on the ability to run a good get-out-the-vote campaign, among other things.

6. The idea that a large mass of Black voters are going to start voting Republican because of abortion has no basis in reality. (If this was going to happen, why hasn’t it already happened?) The large majority of Black voters are not one-issue voters.

7. No, it wouldn’t. There are dozens of other issues, apart from abortion, that are reasons highly politicized people (like myself) care about who appoints Supreme Court justices. Why would I, and others like me, suddenly stop caring about all those other issues if this one issue was off the table?
(Honestly, I don’t think it’s realistic to believe that the Supreme Court ever was or ever could be “depoliticized.” It’s always political in part. And I’d rather people know that, than that they be deceived into believing that Supreme Court appointments are apolitical.)

3:53pm | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZJiujw2Iz8e6D

(Notes: 218)