Huge asterisk on this. Can you point to any moment when doing what you suggest would have been politicially viable? Especially considering the fervor with which GOP are racing to pass bans that don’t include exceptions for rape and incest.
Say what you will about Roe but auto until Thursday it did strike a balance that worked for a vast majority of the country (60%). There were limits, there were restrictions. Why do you presume there were none?
Yeah, you hear consternation about the availability of late term abortions, but if you explain those happen in fewer than 1% of cases and often are medically necessary this concern often is ameliorated.
But now that’s all been blown up. Now there will be two Americas: safe haven America where women are free, and Gilead where women are forced to give birth to their rapists babies.
> Huge asterisk on this. Can you point to any moment when doing what you suggest would have been politicially viable? Especially considering the fervor with which GOP are racing to pass bans that don’t include exceptions for rape and incest
At multiple points in the last 50 years we have been in a place where our executive branch and congress has been controlled by the Democratic Party, and after presidential elections that were pretty solidly decided. At those points federal legislation could have been introduced that if crafted in a bi-partisan way—limited to first trimester, avoiding tax payer funding, limits on fetal tissue use, etc… the Democrats could have passed legislation with some basic bi-partisan support that could have provided access to abortion at a minimal level federally that would account for about 90% of the performed abortions out there. However, because the democrats either chose to die on that remaining 10% hill, or intentionally didn’t fight at all they lost the whole battle. People seem to believe that they were fighting all this time, in reality, they enabled yesterday to happen. I would argue, intentionally, because the only other explanation is that for 50 years the Democratic Party has been incompetent.
Roe never really struck a balance of anything, it was always weak and was always going to fall. It managed to simply pause the illegality question for a time, during which our congress could have and should have acted to affirm the rights.
Even RBG felt it was the wrong case for abortion rights because it didn’t focus on women’s rights, but rather physician privacy. If the most arguably liberal justice in the last 50 years is warning you that Roe is bad and going to fall, you might want to believe them.
> Now there will be two Americas: safe haven America where women are free, and Gilead where women are forced to give birth to their rapists babies.
Actually there will be 50 Americas—-which is really no different today than it was yesterday.
The 111th had the best chance in my opinion. I also think 105th ironically could have as well, despite it being GOP controlled with the right Clinton deal making. The current congress could have as well if they had focused right at the beginning of the term and not went off on witch-hunting and posthumously impeaching former presidents.
Current congress can’t pass anything without 10 Republicans on board, and given how the GOP is coalescing around total abortion bans. Which Republicans do you imagine beyond collins and Murkowski joining to break the filibuster?
Hard to fault Democrats in the 105th for what Republicans wouldn’t do.
That leaves one congress in 50 years’ time with even a shot. Could they have done it, maybe, but we saw how even when Democrats bent over backwards to accommodate Republican ideas into the ACA (inviting and incorporating over 100 amendments, basing it off of a heritage foundation plan implemented by Republican Mitt Romney in MA), they still got 0 Republican support.
Do you think a partisan abortion law would have solved anything? Do you think that wouldn’t have been appealed immediately after the 115th Congress? They failed to repeal the ACA by 1 vote. I can’t imagine how they could have failed repealing an abortion law.
And btw, impeaching Trump in 2021 for orchestrating an insurrection and coup was absolutely necessary. Unfortunately Republicans refused to convict, because as we now know, many of them were complicit in the coup and sought pardons for their roles (read: crimes). Had they convicted him, he would have been barred from holding future office and a huge problem would have been solved for the country. It was worth a shot. Unfortunately, now a man who sought to overthrow the US government is running for President again, and might win.
I think kcplate has a point here, though. The Democrats have had Congressional majorities before and squandered them one way and another, often because they were playing t-ball with the GOP.
even when Democrats bent over backwards to accommodate Republican ideas into the ACA
That's what I mean, the Democrats keep trying to appeal to the middle by saying 'look how bipartisan we are' and getting kicked int he gut. As a party, they want to appeal to the moral authority of a teacher or moderate voters' consciences, and so they continually aspire to good stewardship. The reality is that while that does appeal to some, American people in general don't respect weakness and reflexively distance themselves from losers. Culturally speaking, winning is more important than being right to many Americans, and even people who believe it ought to be otherwise have to balance their idealism with the logic of survival.
The GOP has been shifting toward a win-at-all-costs mentality since 1994 when Gingrich took Congress (after a long, long period of Democratic dominance) with the 'contract with America.' Despite many of these 'contractual' provisions not being serious (eg the commitment to balanced budgets has only ever been a talking/negotiating point for the GOP, when holding power they max out on debt), they provided a unifying agenda for conservatives whose object is power for its own sake, and such conservatives now dominate the GOP.
Democrats worry that whenever they drift too far 'left' the GOP will attack them mercilessly, and so they tend to huddle in the middle, where the GOP attack them mercilessly anyway. Centrist Democrats literally lose seats and console themselves that if they had put up more of a fight their margin of defeat would have been even more painful.
Huge asterisk on this. Can you point to any moment when doing what you suggest would have been politicially viable? Especially considering the fervor with which GOP are racing to pass bans that don’t include exceptions for rape and incest.
Say what you will about Roe but auto until Thursday it did strike a balance that worked for a vast majority of the country (60%). There were limits, there were restrictions. Why do you presume there were none?
Yeah, you hear consternation about the availability of late term abortions, but if you explain those happen in fewer than 1% of cases and often are medically necessary this concern often is ameliorated.
But now that’s all been blown up. Now there will be two Americas: safe haven America where women are free, and Gilead where women are forced to give birth to their rapists babies.