According to the New York Times Trump favors a 16-week abortion ban with rape/incest/life of the mother exceptions. And doesn’t want to pick vice president who disagrees.
I am unimpressed.
As the article notes, Trump has been all over the map on abortion, including at one point calling for penalties for the mother, which the forced-birth movement pretends it opposes. There’s no particular reason to believe him this time, especially as it’s presented as his personal, private views not an official stance. Biden’s personal Catholic views are anti-abortion — he just doesn’t want that imposed into law. NYT reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan should know perfectly well that Trump’s innermost feelings have nothing to do with what’s important — what policies he’ll push and what bills he’ll sign. As LGM says, “The abortion criminalization movement is also perfectly well aware that Trump will sign any federal abortion ban that Congress puts on his desk, and its more sophisticated members understand that Trump lying or obfuscating his position makes such a ban more likely.”
It’s telling that Trump’s spokesperson, Karoline Leavitt, says in the article “he would sit down with both sides and negotiate a deal that everyone will be happy with.” That is a lie because there is no deal everyone would be happy with, though it fits Trump’s pretense he’s an awesome deal-maker. The article says Trump’s’s criticized Republicans for talking too much about a stronger ban, but that’s not to say he’d oppose it. A number of Republicans say they should soft-pedal their view that women are aquariums until they have the power to put it into law. If that means more women die, well it’s the fish in the aquarium that matters, not the container.
The religious right have been loyal too him precisely because he’s been loyal to them: if he gets into office, given his enthusiasm for dictatorship, who’s to say what he’d do? Especially given a total abortion ban is high on the right-wing agenda if they get power again. Besides, it’s not as if Trump personally needs to push an abortion ban to ban abortion. Keep allowing private lawsuits against doctors who provide abortions. Keep steering women to crisis-pregnancy/forced-birth centers even though they’re not medical centers (something forced-birthers want the right to lie about). Ban abortion drugs. Restricting access to prenatal tests. Unleashing the old Comstock Act. Even if he does none of those, a national ban won’t, I’m sure, affect states that already have tougher laws — just the blue states with more generous ones.
Abortion is far from the only reason for fighting a Trump presidency but it’s an important one.
In Missouri, meanwhile, Sen. Rick Brattin says forcing rape victims to carry the baby could be what they need to heal. I’m guessing leaving it up to the individual victim doesn’t suit him. Rep. Sandy Crawford says she opposes abortion for rape victims because God doesn’t make mistakes. Right, rape can be god’s plan but not abortion. And Senator Bill Eigel protests that the exemption means “kids can get abortions in the state of Missouri” — even one-year-olds (yes, he said it!).
The Hill, meanwhile, points out the problems with making perfect pregnant women the face of abortion rights.
For more horrible forced-birth arguments and why they’re bullshit, check out my Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward.
