Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will hold a vote on the bill codifying the legality of abortion so that voters, he says, can “see where each senator stands.” While Schumer believes this is a political blow to Democrats, it presents a golden opportunity for Republicans to make their case.
While many conservatives have rightly avoided celebrating Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision prematurely, many also seem wary of debating the underlying issue. Indeed, the draft leak is a significant attack on the system, but no more so than Roe v. Wade. For 50 years, our culture and media have treated this wrong decision as righteous and ritualistic.
Certainly the majority of the population is not aware of the maximalist position of the establishment left. Republicans should take this opportunity to emphasize that even if they were moderately pro-choice, they could not support Schumer’s barbaric bill that legalizes abortion for any reason on demand up to the moment of birth. They should follow up on this point and note that Democrats, including the president, also want taxpayers to foot the bill for abortions, including late-term abortions.
Passing Schumer’s bill would likely translate into the dismemberment of thousands of viable children purely for convenience. (Well, thousands more than the roughly 10,000 already killed annually by late-term abortions.) The floor debate would be a good time to point out that there is no bill to prevent doctors from saving the mother’s life. Indeed, medical literature shows that third-trimester abortions are very rarely performed due to “maternal health complications or fatal fetal defects detected late in pregnancy,” as reported by the anti-abortion Charlotte Lozier Institute. The pro-choice Guttmacher Institute found that most women who choose late-term abortions “do not do so because of fetal defects or life-threatening conditions.”
Republicans might want to ask their Democratic colleagues what, if any, abortion restrictions they think should be put in place. When Fox News’ Bret Baier pressed former pro-life activist Tim Ryan, now the Democratic senatorial candidate in Ohio (and whom the media often portrays as a moderate), whether he believed in any restrictions on abortion, he replied, “You’re supposed to leave that to the woman.” Why does Congressman Ryan believe that it is “up to the woman” to decide whether a man lives or dies a minute before his coronation, but not a minute after? I’m sure I’m not the only one curious about why Democrats think it’s “reproductive justice” to get rid of babies like Lyla Stensrud, born at 21 weeks and four days and weighing just 14.4 ounces.
The floor debate would be a good time to remind everyone that in 2019, Senate Democrats blocked Republican Ben Sasse’s efforts to gain unanimous consent on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act – a bill that did not technically address abortion , but she protected children who survived surgery.
And when Democrats combine their rhetoric of racial grievance with “body autonomy” arguments, someone should ask them: “Why do you think it’s okay for abortion mills to target minority communities? Do you share Margaret Sanger’s racist stance on black children? Do you agree with sex selective abortion? If not, why do you disagree with abortion that, for the convenience of clients, eliminates people with non-life-threatening fetal defects such as Down syndrome? must be emphasized, in most cases this means both the father and the mother – a policy that is rightly called eugenics?
A floor debate would be a good opportunity to expose the lies being spread about “forced abortions,” ectopic pregnancy and contraception bans, as well as remind voters that Democrats want to strip health care workers of their conscience rights and force them to participate in abortions.
Of course I’m not naive. Most abortion supporters won’t answer, and the media won’t ask. When does life begin? Maybe a Democrat will finally have an answer. Or maybe the issue will remain above “pay grade,” as former President Barack Obama, who led the radicalization of abortion, once said. In the current situation, the left takes the position that only the mother (no longer called a “person giving birth” or “breastfeeding”) can answer such questions. Not only is this unscientific; this is morally indefensible. This is why abortion activists are forced to employ a multitude of euphemisms – “bodily autonomy” and “reproductive rights” – to avoid describing the unpleasant reality and consequences of the fatal surgical procedure they promote.
But now that SCOTUS can overturn Roe, Democrats will no longer be able to silence the debate by claiming that abortion is undoubtedly a constitutional right. They should be forced to make the case – perhaps not in clearly blue states, but on the national stage. So far, they seem completely unprepared for this debate, which makes Republicans’ lukewarm response to the possible end of Roe even more inexplicable.
